Chapter 37
Dr Hank
"That boy," Storm began, looking at Scott's retreating form. "He means well, but his anger blinds him. I fear he's far too rigid to lead the X-men."
"The kid just needs time," Logan grunted. "The Prof babies 'em, but eventually, they'll have to see the ugly side of the fight. Dante's their first real look."
I looked down at my tablet and up at the room, my night vision chasing away the darkness of the night. I frowned.
"Still, Dante went too far," Logan said. "I wonder what set him off. Last I knew, he and the Prof were getting along just fine."
"The Professor didn't call for him exactly," Storm said. "He followed Jean up. Maybe the Professor said something, or he learned about the plot to keep him here?"
"Hardly reason to blow off somebody's arm," Logan argued. "Despite what Scott might think and tell people, the Kid has been pretty reasonable. Four weeks and no complaints of violence or misbehavior."
"I think I might know what set him off," Beast slowly said. "The professor struck first," I said, pointing to the splotch of blood in front of the Professor's table. "Notice Xavier's blood is fresher. Jean hadn't even finished the tourniquet when we rushed in."
"Why would he attack him?" Storm questioned.
"Maybe the kid pulled his sword?" Logan hazarded, but I doubted it. I'd watched Dante train for weeks; I knew how fast he could move toward the end.
Eighty-three miles per hour--faster than the human eye could track. Good thing I wasn't entirely human, and neither was Charles, but he was perfectly ordinary everywhere except his mind.
I was rapidly arriving at the undesirable conclusion that Charles had struck first, unprovoked. Logan likely suspected as much as he sniffed the air and stared at the blood spatter, but I elected to delay the conversation until I spoke to Xavier himself.
"Only Jean and the Professor know what happened for sure," I said. "We will ask them when they're ready."
Logan, however, seemed to have missed my hint and continued talking. " "The Prof is no slouch, but there's no way I see him wounding the Kid unless…"
"You're not thinking the Professor attacked his mind?" Storm suggested.
"It would explain the blood," I muttered, thinking out loud. "All of the blood vessels in his head must've ruptured dozens of times."
"I've never seen the old man take down somebody that hard," Logan said. "Not even Magneto got this sort of treatment. He must've been really pissed off, or he was that afraid."
"Dante has mental resistance," Storm said. "When you consider his healing factor, the professor might've had to push that hard to stop him."
"But it didn't keep him down for long." I pointed at the scorched wooden floor and the finger-sized hole in the wall behind Xavier's chair.
"If even Xavier cannot stop him, Dante is more powerful than any of us realized," I said. "We need to prepare for that during our next meeting."
Logan grunted in agreement but squinted. "Still, something doesn't feel right."
Logan had no idea.
"I suppose we'll find out soon enough," Storm concluded, then turned to me when she noticed my turmoil.
"Are you okay, Professor?"
"I'm… not sure," I said truthfully. "I need some time to think."
---
I stood far away from Clint and Natasha in what they called Defender Gear. Next-generation body armor used a proprietary blend of metal, kevlar, carbon fiber, and reactive materials that instantly went stiff when impacted by blunt force trauma.
I was dressed in a unibody suit, with tanks wielding sonic cannons behind me and dozens of soldiers carrying rifles that were at least ten years ahead of anything on the market.
Per my instructions, we've kept the initial response lean, comprising just ten heavily armed men, while the other 50 soldiers hung back with their rifles and tanks.
I'd told Fury about QUELLITRAX's obsession with consumption. I hated to see what the creep could manage with human Biomass.
I was making them fight my battle for me. The least I could do was be honest with them...to an extent.
"The boss man wouldn't mind if I kept this after the fight, would he?" I asked Clint, who kept his head on a swivel, surveying the valley we had set up at.
"Each suit of armor cost taxpayers over 2 million dollars," Clint yelled back.
"So, that's a Yes?"
"Don't let the Director catch you making plans for his property," Natasha said. "He's likely to trust you less than he already does."
I looked at Natasha and made my eyes turn Red. "This is coming from the ex-Russian spy?"
Natasha didn't react.
"That doesn't get any less creepy," Clint commented, and I heard Fury's voice buzzing in my ears.
"If you're done with your parlor tricks, tell me how long we have till they show up."
"Ten minutes and forty-five seconds."
I heard Fury's voice boom over a speaker in the background. "Set your watches, gentlemen.
We're 10 minutes out."
The following 10 minutes were the longest of my life. The outcome of this mission would determine the course of my life moving forward. I'd either spend it as an asset of SHIELD or a murderhobo fugitive dropping bodies left and right.
On the bright side, I had enough ammunition in my Weapon Vault to level a small town and would come out of this deal with multiple new weapons.
SHIELD will not be detaining me today, even if that means killing Fury and every Soldier here.
I hefted the grenade launcher SHIELD had given men and double-checked it, waiting patiently for the timer to hit zero.
The second it did, a dot appeared in reality, and slowly, it grew like an ink splotch of pure darkness.
A wave of nervousness swept the rank. Most soldiers were understandably freaked out, but they hid it better than I'd expected.
Even Clint and Natasha, expert spies, looked out of their depths.
When the dot grew to the size of a window, Fury roared, "Fire!"
I was already launching a grenade at it from a distance.
Four smoking pellets dropped on the dark spot, exploding as dozens of rifle fire and explosions ripped into the darkness and the landscape around it.
It continued to grow regardless and finally slowed down when it reached the size of a door.
A laugh carrying a thousand voices echoed from the abyss. Its voice was like nails on chalk and caused our communications to wig out momentarily.
"AmUSiNG," it croaked. "YoU CaNnOT StOp WhAT iS tO CoME. I WiLL SaVOr tHE TaSTe oF YoUR SoULs."
An unnatural chill swept the morning air even though it was noon. And I could tell some agents were shitting themselves. Clint and Natasha were terrified, but you wouldn't know it with their poker faces.
Dozens of tentacles rushed out of the rift, reaching for me and the row of agents closest to it.
"Son of a–" An expedient Demonic Burst carried me far back enough to grab Clint and Natasha and toss them back. They were the only two that escaped out of 10, and the transformation occurred immediately.
The Tentacles bore into their orifices, filling them with darkness until their eyes turned black.
Thankfully, the surviving SHIELD agents didn't just wait until the body snatcher finished.
Natasha was the first to fire her rifle, drilling a hole in an ex-agent's head. An arrow from Clint followed after, and that opened the floodgates.
Fury gave the order, and everybody fired, shredding the agents from afar.
Their body suits held on longer than I expected before exploding from the pressure. Entire limbs disappeared, and brain matter was spilled.
I contributed to the chaos with two shots of my grenade launcher, thoroughly scattering what remained of the agents, and I got a notification.
Without even reading it, I instantly knew something was wrong.
"Don't let your guard down!" I yelled. "There's not all dead."
Congratulations: You've defeated a Lesser Eldritch Propagator. You've earned 30 Red Orbs.
This breed of Eldritch monsters differed from the Brutes and Spawn I faced. QUELL was beefing up his army.
I activated Devil Eye, peering through the smoke, and spotted 5 Propagators darting into the forest behind us, their speeds almost twice as fast as ordinary men.
The remaining two did something I did not quite expect. Black tentacles oozed out of their barely-put-together bodies, and they began to merge, pulling in the dirt, discarded weapons, and spare body parts.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered as I aimed my grenade launcher. "Fire where I fire. There's something in the smoke. We're fucked if we don't put it down before it completes its transformation."
I did not hold back. I kept shooting until I was out of ammunition, and when that was done, I summoned an AK and continued ripping into it. Our attacks sent it stumbling and spinning, but it did considerably less damage than our initial volley.
It'd stripped all of the reactive armor, gathered it around its chest to tank the attack, and wrapped its main body in black tentacles.
When the creature finally returned fire, I was the only one fast enough to react.
Six rifles cocked themselves and started firing. It cut through the first line like grass while I frantically used Burst. Natasha and Clint ducked low and navigated their way behind a truck, and I was behind another with a sniper rifle mounted on my shoulder.
I looked down the scope and saw that most of our first line was dead.
The dust had settled, and the monster standing before me was two-headed with six arms and four twisted legs that ferried it around the battlefield like a twisted crustacean.
I took the sniper shot at the same time as Clint and two other Snipers, taking off both of the Beast's heads and two arms. Shockingly, the body parts held on with thick cords of black sludge, yanking them back into position and sealing the wounds.
More black tentacles burst out of the monster's wound, stabbing other dead soldiers and pulling their bodies in.
"That's concerning," Clint said.
"Unit two, four, and six, watch our flanks. I don't know where his friends disappeared to, but I bet they'll be swinging back around, " Fury ordered. "Donald, rip that thing apart with the sonic cannons."
Everybody tapped the side of their earpieces as the Sonic weapons powered up. The world went quiet, and the landscape before us quaked as trees shook and split, and the monster shrieked and waffled.
The sight was humbling.
Tentacles turned to sludge and leaked out of its fragile body, and down my scope, I could see a black gem sticking out of one of its hind legs.
I didn't overthink things and squeezed the trigger. The reaction was immediate. The monster began to writhe as large sections of its monstrous body went limp.