Chapter 60: Restless

Brontë was a deep sleeper. Deep in the sense of his psyche. Deep beyond simple dreams and nightmares. He traveled worlds. He tangled with gods and realms made more of concepts and conflictions than atoms.

He hadn't slept in three days. Not a full night. Not after hearing there was a traitor deep inside Wakanda's walls. Deep like he used to be in sleep….

He told Laura. He confided in her, but out of respect and understanding of the Queens wishes to not spring anything prematurely, that was it.

"Nothings changed, hermano. Nothing changes." Her words echoed in his brain as if his skull was a cave and she was a tossed stone.

It stayed that way for hours as he laid in his room wide awake. Like the last few nights, he trained. It kept his mind from spiraling into anxious psychosis.

"Think of it as homework. …."

His assignment was mixing his Elemental States. Due date? Yesterday. Better to work on that than worry about a mole. Like Laura said, nothing changes.

So in his bed he laid. Two fingers to the ceiling topped by an electrical flame.

"Three nights. Hours of meditative strain…. For this. Man fuck. It ain't a magnum opus... but it's hot." He thought in the silence.

And hot was an understatement. The AC was on full blast and still, a point on the ceiling seven plus feet above him was left with chipped scalding paint.

It was strong. It was literally burning him— like a thousand insects biting at his skin. Impressive considering how resistant he was to the elements.

Maintaining it was the issue. Expanding it, even. Every Element had a tempo— a rhythm and feel.

Water was tranquil. Heavy tunes left slow and melodic over stringed instruments.

Winds were fast and light. Think drummer in a band if he wasn't trying to put a hole in his set up. But they could be other tunes. The wind was various.

Ice was similar to water. Only even slower. Like one steady hard note.

Easy to understand.

But fire and lightning.

It was violent. Hell, it was beyond violent. It was chaotic. It didn't really feel like music.

But this was it.

He'd never been so happy to see his skin burn down to the bone. The bio-metal so hot it glowed a brilliant yellow gilded red.

"This is how I kill him."

He just needed the time to master it. Hopefully Remus or Ororo had some ideas by morning.

Until then. Sleep wouldn't come to him, and he'd made his room hot enough.

His father and siblings were sweating. If his mother didn't have to pull guard duty with the rest of the Dora Milaje, she would've pulled his ear clean off by now.

"Yea I'm bugging…" Bronte thought and sat up in his bed.

Jr rolled over in his sleep, his shirt ruffled upward, revealing the reptilian Mutant scales growing along the sides of his abdominal muscles.

How times had changed.

The siblings he once knew now too scared and confused to face him the same. Others becoming more like him than ever.

With that in mind, he thought of drums. Light steady taps. A pitter patter like rain. Winds traveled inward through the cracked window near his bed and coalesced beneath his feet like a spinning carpet. Sounding like nothing more than a mid night breeze.

Brontë hopped off the bed and levitated on the winds so not to let his three hundred and fifty pound footfalls wake anyone.

He approached his mirror seated atop his black and blue dresser, grabbing a simple black t shirt and rubber band to tie up his locs.

He studied himself in the fading darkness as he hovered.

The once white strand of hair intermingled in his braids was now a single white dread that hung over his face. Much like his eyes that seemed to flare every time he used a mutant ability. Weirdly enough, he could see the faintest glow of his bones beneath his skin.

It almost looked like tribal markings.

Everything else was the same. Medium height, muscled build. He was dense— hard all over. Hairy as a werewolf. Maybe not that hairy. He was definitely a long ways away from the skinny sick kid at midtown high.

Midtown High.

For some reason he found himself thinking back to that last day. When he and some photo club kid were looking at a memorial of Jimmy Hudson.

Attacked by Sabertooth. Only for him to suffer the same fate three years later.

Weird.

Brontë left the room at the thought of Sabertooth just in case he erupted in vengeful flames of rage.

The halls welcomed him in all their Vibranium glow darkness. The floors speckled with starry reactive glows wherever his feet fell, sending weight size and height statistics to the Dora Milaje headquarters. Behind the walls he could hear wiring and tubing running the span of the building in blotches where blockades and such weren't placed.

It would've felt like a spaceship if there wasn't big open windows at each end of the hall showing him he was still on ear—

He stopped in his tracks and scented the air. Chemicals…. New chemicals. Laura trained him in identifying ones that could erase them. None of that was present. Just basic chemicals with a weird afterscent. Cleaning product….?

But no sounds no alarms. Mole?

"AH-! NO—p please!"

Brontë flew down the hall with his claws popped and rushed into Raze's room. Thoughts of the mole fresh on his mind had him ready to find some silent assassin standing over Raze with a rope of fire trying to rip off his head.

Instead all Bronte found was Raze laying on the floor. Legs and arms all different sizes. Flexing and squirming like leeches in salt. Splotches of blue skin exploded and expanded across his face in waves.

Gabbie laid on his bed with a panther plushie and headphones on blasting….. Paramore.

She had good taste. They had to be related.

Brontë approached Raze. Step after step, he maintained his silence so not to awaken h—

Raze's arm flew up like a Cobra fit with a mouth and fangs in his palm and lunged.

Brontë leaned to the side and caught his limb only for it to exploded with spikes that looked just like shark teeth.

"Ow…." Bronte mumbled.

An eyeball opened in Raze's hand, closing as soon as his real eyes opened. "Well if it isn't the protagonist, Brontosaur."

Brontë pulled the spiked appendage out of his grip and tossed it back to Raze. "What's good."

"I- I don't know.." Raze stilled. No smile, no psychotic sense of character. Just a scared….child really. He may have looked as much an adult as Bronte, but he was barely sixteen. And less than a month ago he met his creator…. And saw the first other of his kind being enslaved by people he trusted.

He'd been having nightmares since. And Brontë hated that he didn't know how to help. If he finished highschool he would've gotten into psychology just for this.

"I get you..." Bronte started, "Man…. No I don't. I have no idea what you're thinking if we being real. I don't like it, but that's what it is. The only way we can get to it though is to get through this."

Raze stayed silent.

"But along the way, if you need to talk…. I'm game. You know I'm game. Alien-Mutant Hybrid to Warlock-Mutant Hybrid, you feel me? Just because we all have nightmares don't mean it's normal."

Raze's eyes twinkled as he looked up at Bronte and smiled, "You done being all sappy? Fuck if I wanted to get emotional I could've just watched the notebook with Gabbie for a sixteenth time."

His way of saying thanks.

Brontë shrugged and sat down across from Raze against the wall. Raze copied him, sitting criss cross with his back to the bed. His red spiky hair moved like blades of grass in the wind.

"Cmon bro, tighten up. Sappy is in style. Men of our generation can't be stuffing down our emotions with bicep curls and shit. Women like an emotionally intelligent gentleman. They probably always have to be honest….." Bronte pondered the state of men and women seriously for half a second.

"Hey, genius. We're about as gentle as road spikes HAHA—" He stopped his usual wild cackle and looked back at Gabbie, "Don't you dare wake up and ruin boys night."

"Dude it's morning."

"Kiss my ass. It's turn up time." Raze replied sticking his tongue out so long it almost caught Bronte's white dread.

Brontë let his head lean into the wall as he sighed.

Raze stretched his limbs around the room like Mr Fantastic as he began fiddling with things.

"Them jokes came back fast, huh?" Bronte commented.

A mechanical click announced the arrival of good music from a stereo.

"Like cops in white neighborhoods….hehehe…" Raze said, fitting with the J Cole track, No Role Models, as it lightly played through the room.

He so wished he had a beat pad with him.

"So, how's the totally not anime inspired training going?" Raze asked. "I smell your magic through the night."

Brontë looked up in surprise, "You do?"

Raze dug under his bed as he nodded, stretching out his nose comically, "I smell everything!"

"Well, it's going slow." Bronte lifted a finger. It still steamed faintly, nothing came. "Slower than I thought…"

"Performance issues? Need a viagra already?!? Papi bone claws would be disappointed." Raze pulled his arm back from under his bed with a baggy and paper in hand.

"Maybe some herb will lift the spirits, young warrior…" Raze shifted his vocal cords to sound like a wise old man... a wise old man who happened to sound exactly like Gandalf.

"Oh nah…. You stole evidence?" Bronte questioned the …..Vampire Ash Kush strain Raze sprinkled along some rolling paper.

"They stole my people. Get off my nuts, mop head HAHA!"

Brontë watched him expertly roll up a joint as if he was a regular while the music played. His skin had gone full blue and his fangs gleamed under the orange and purple Wakandan sky.

"We can't even get high." Bronte commented, "You be in here role playing or what?"

Raze stretched out his hand holding the joint all the way to Bronte.

"Dude….. dumbass edgy fourteen year olds TO THIS DAY still smoke squares KNOWING it only makes them and their lungs weaker…. All because it looks cool. Can we do the same for like five minutes? Come on I'm a test tube baby I need all the normal experiences I can get."

"Vampire Kush and normal—"

"Light the damn thing before I go manic, brother!." Raze interrupted.

Brontë brought a single flame to his finger and lit the joint.

Purple red embers gleamed on the crushed bud inside the paper. It smelled like old blood, grape juice and skunk.

Raze brought it to his lips and took a long drag. Purple magical smoke twisted from his lips like tendrils.

He exhaled, singing along as he bobbed his head, "No role models and I'm here right now! HEY— No role models to speak of…. "

The sight was so goofy, Bronte let out a laugh.

"Alright alright, swing that."

Raze passed the joint with an evil cackle.

Ten minutes later, the joint was halfway gone, and so were they. Not really, it was the experience that mattered anyway.

Brontë had changed the song to Swimming Pools by Kendrick Lamar. A classic even though his newer work with Baby Keem was just as good.

He could've cried. He missed just sitting and absorbing music.

"Kendrick and Cole on an album would be straight DICK!" Raze argued.

"You sure you ain't high?" Bronte questioned back as he took another puff.

"Be serious, Brontosaur! Nobody wants to hear that lyrical spherical BS TWICE! HAHA Id rip my ears off. It needs balance."

Brontë thought on that for a moment, "Hold on….. I see what you saying, though."

"Ehh!?!? Right?"

"Sike. Kendrick and Cole are more versatile than you giving them credit for. Stop lowballing."

Raze growled and waved him off.

The two were silent before chuckling.

Next track, The Alchemist Ft Earl Sweatshirt, Loose Change.

Brontë raised an eyebrow at the stereo, "What the hell is this style change?!?"

Raze shrugged.

"Is this your playlist?"

Raze shook his head, "No dumbass! It's yours. Well. It's what I think you'd like. Y'know like the bits and pieces of stuff I hear you listen to when you're working out or singing when you need to switch elements. It's the stuff that hurts the least to me."

"You made me a playlist? Respect…" Bronte played on the admiration to mask the tightness of his throat.

"Yea how about you respect me and stop hogging the roach." Raze reached for the joint.

Brontë was left empty handed listening to the song.

He'd never heard it. But the trumpets and the base heavy backdrop following Earls offbeat tempo alternative rap style gave an interesting feeling.

It felt triumphant. In tune with the suns rise. But the win felt like it came from a place of constant loss with Earls tone and cadence.

Fitting.

Brontë bobbed his head to the music.

"So, what you and Gabbie been watching after training these days?"

"What else? Romance." Raze replied mid drag.

"That doesn't bother you?" Bronte laughed.

Raze went serious for a moment. Brontë assumed an obscure joke was coming.

"You know, Gabbie used to hate me."

Brontë regarded him oddly.

"Wherever she was held…. They had a lot of Monsters. She had to fight them. Test her healing and such. Her captors fed her to them. So when her and Laura found me…. For weeks she made it very obvious. But then our safe house got firebombed. It was before I knew fire could kill me. She saved me. Went into shock from how burned she was. She wasn't older than seven."

Brontë sat in silence.

"I've never been so happy to kill in my life….. my hands still shake when I think about it. What kind of evil could Romulus hope to pull from someone so…. So pure?"

Brontë steadied, "Fuck it."

Raze looked at him.

Brontë shrugged, "It don't matter. He's a dead man walking. If anything about him is like the wolf, it's his greed. He took a big ass bite messing with us, and we move like overcooked steak."

Raze raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"He can't swallow us. He can't chew us down into submission. He can't. I won't let him."

Raze chuckled like a mentally well human. "So poetic."

"You played Earl Sweatshirt and thought wordplay wasn't coming? Crazy work."

"Real."

"We'll get him."

Track change. New song, 50 Cent Ft Eminem, Patiently Waiting.

Suddenly he missed New York.

Raze looked ready to say something else. Facing him in such a calm and fragile state felt like talking to a completely new person. But the same still.

"B—"

Footsteps had them both eyeing the door with their noses high.

Familiar scent but not recognizable. Somebody they've seen before but not too many times.

The chemical scent…. But also Gentle?

Brontë approached the door as the best to patiently waiting interlaced a heart monitor flatlining as Eminem took over as usual.

Brontë opened the door before the individual could knock.

A man in a lab coat and black slacks stood before him. Dark skin, braids and mundane features. Blank eyes, medium lips, neutral eyebrows. He looked like characters in video games when you leave them at their default settings. Only something was different. Just like before….

"Oh! Brontë, I didn't expect to find you in Raze's room so early." N'Thanial explained.

Brontë nodded, "We swap rooms every now and then."

N'Thanials eyes shrunk, "Really?"

"Was that an English accent?"

He stood on his tiptoes to try and look over Bronte's hulking shoulders.

Brontë looked down at his feet as he took a step closer and sized him up.

"Your shoes are the wrong size."

And that was an understatement. They looked like swimming slippers dipped in steel.

One, nobody was allowed in the complex. Ever since Raze's nightmares started the rule was triple enforced. Two, why wear weighted large shoes unless you were trying to evade floor id scanners?

Something clicked.

N'Thanial's smile twisted into something evil. Something sinister, "Oh…. Heheh—"

Brontë ran his claws through the intruders face, sending his other set of claws through his throat to tear off his head. The thing went spinning down the hall as the body sagged against the wall.

"It's happening….. it's happening." His chest tightened and his peripheral vision went black. "It's here."

"Bronte!" Raze yelled, "The body!"

Brontë followed Raze's finger to where he pointed and found the body's lab coat flare open to reveal a bomb vest.

Ten seconds.

Brontë picked up the body that seemed to be degrading into white slop in real time.

"Move." Bronte said as he headed for Raze's window.

"No sacrifice plays remember?" Raze said.

"Raze can fly too." Gabbie was up in a flash.

"I'm the fastest person here and we don't know how strong the bomb is MOVE!" Bronte spit a gust of wind at them to clear a path and burst through the window.

His Storm State was active in a flash and he rocketed towards the sky. As he flew he eyed the ocean and borders for signs of war.

Nothing. Just the early morning.

Two seconds….

He threw the bomb up into the early morning sky.

Boom.

The body and bomb vest exploded like a Vibranium fire bomb on steroids. Fiery purple shockwaves radiated from the sky, ripping off layers of Bronte's skin and putting ungodly amounts of pressure on his bones as he fell back towards the earth.

The pinging sound in his ears was deafening.

"It's happening..."

He opened his eyes and resumed flight with him and his families complex only a few hundred feet below.

He hovered. Questioning if he should go back or head to alert Ororo—

The complex exploded in flames and gas clouds.

His soul crushed as children screamed.

"WAIT!"

He flew in a blur, reaching for the flames and pulling. Like a blanket pulled off a bed, flames were ripped from the building and left to evaporate in the air as Bronte came in. Panic held him in a vice grip.

He could hear his adoptive siblings outside screaming for Junior. He was on the verge of a heart attack.

His room was empty. No, it wasn't. He could smell him. Brontë rushed to his bed and flung it across the room, Jr laid underneath, clothes partially burned. Scales revealed. Glowing like embers.

"Hey, hey you're ok." Bronte got him to his feet. "I'm gonna get you out of here. We just need to find Daken and Laura."

They headed down the hall.

Raze's room was empty. Burned to hell everywhere except for a box behind the wall above the doorway. He looked out the window and found Raze on the floor burned surrounded by kids. Gabbie and Daken were with him arguing about something.

They found him looking and yelled while pointing, "LAURA! RUN!"

Suddenly her door was kicked off the hinges.

"Oh my god…" Junior mumbled.

Laura stepped out out her room trailed by gas and flames. Her skin fell off in sloppy burned bunches. Her bald head was a mess of burns and scrapes as if she'd been clawing at her brain. Pure white rabid eyes regarded them.

"Laura? What—"

"RAGH!" Laura charged them in a frenzied blur.

Brontë picked up Jr and faced his back to her just in time to be shoved out the window.

He hit the ground below back first with Jr in his arms.

When he opened his eyes he found everyone surrounding them.

"Trigger scent." Gabbie said with a horrified look in her eyes. "That means…."

"N'Thanial was the mole. He works with Romulus and that's how he bugged her room with the Trigger scent. It's a distraction. If Laura's attacking us from the inside…"

"They can come in from the outside." Daken finished.

"It's happening."

An alarm went off suddenly.

Once it ended, Laura roared and jumped out the window.

"Get them to the Queen, I'll hold her off and catch up."

"Don't get your ass handed to you. We need you for what's comi—" Daken started.

"I know. Get going."

They ran. Brontë stayed.

Laura faced him. An animal in human skin. Burned human skin. Slowly healing.

"This shit better be temporary, hermana." Bronte popped his claws.

Laura roared and the alarms went off again.

It was really happening. Out of nowhere. In a flash. Now or never…