Chapter 61: Progenitor Assault

People were already screaming. Even with Laura slashing and puncturing his eardrums, he could feel it in the floor. Vibrations. Tremors. Spirits coming undone.

People were dying. He could smell the spoiled blood like an undercurrent.

Unlike the overcurrent of waves at Wakanda's borders. Again, he couldn't see. But by the gods he could smell the cruel salt water everywhere. Like a hand closing around his world. Choking the freedom from his throat. Crushing his will. But never breaking it—

Laura's foot smashed into his arm as they wrestled through the city. It snapped inward against his ribs.

Immediately she sent a roundhouse kick to his head, looking for the killing combo of foot claw to brain.

Brontë ducked in a blur and spit a ball of wind at her.

She flew down the street and wrapped around a stop sign like a ragdoll. The sound of her spine cracking made him cringe amidst the citywide chaos.

He closed the distance between them, vaulting over moving cars and trucks. When he finally reached her, she was just getting to her fee—

A fire bomb exploded across Bronte's back from the window of a moving car.

"You MUTANT FREAKS DIE TODAY!"

If the encroaching war wasn't enough, there seemed to also be a small scale Mutant Hate Group seeping out of the cracks.

Laura was on the car like it was dinner. Metal screamed almost as loudly as the men inside as she ripped apart the roof like it was a can of sardines. Her jaws opened, fangs slathered and shimmering with frothy saliva.

"RAAAA—"

"STOP!" Bronte flew into Laura, knocking her off the car.

They rolled another few blocks, clawing and biting at eachother as the hate group made itself known, firing off at the most visible Mutants— and even just men and women with simple deformities.

Bronte and his feral sister rolled to a stop with her on top. She slashed open his face once before he sent a shock through her body, locking her joints and burning her skin in ashen arcs. Immediately he grabbed her into a chokehold to survey the area.

Store fronts stood ablaze. People screamed inside. Stop signs clattered against the streets as men and women threw and crashed into anything in their path. Like a stampede on steroids.

His eyes locked onto a man walking down a mother and her son with a gun in hand. Their blue skin was as red as a target at a gun range.

He took aim.

So did Bronte.

An arc of Lightning shot from his palm and hit the man so hard his glasses burst.

Laura shook and bit into his forearm.

"OUCH!"

Brontë focused on the chaos outside. He held his palm to the sky. The bones within glowed red as he pooled the flames from the stores into his hand.

The ground tremors came once again, this time in the form of a hateful speeding car. He could smell the weaponry laid against the leather seats. The sweat. The fear as he and Laura looked back at them from their spot on the street.

Brontë threw the condensed ball of fire at the underside of the car.

It exploded up through the windshield and flipped the car over them.

Before it hit the ground they were on the move. Brontë could feel cold air coming from a nearby meat store after he removed the flames.

Laura kicked and roared rabidly as he flew, straight through the broken windows and smashing down into the basement.

Cold air swirled around them. Frozen cuts of meat jangled from their hooks.

Brontë stood up, wiping the debris off himself. Laura didn't bother, slicing through a slab of Crocodile to reach him.

Brontë ducked beneath the blow and ran his claws through her knee.

She fell, immobilized.

He spun around her, manipulating— intensifying the cold winds. Coaxing them into streams of ice as he brought moisture into the room until Laura was encased in an impossibly thick block of ice everywhere except her head.

He slid to a stop in front of her. It wasn't his sister. It was a pile of instinct and aggression wearing her skin. But it could be her again, he just didn't know when.

"I won't let you do anything you regret while you're like this. Not when everything's on the line. Get right, come find us. You know where we'll be."

Laura snarled.

Brontë turned and jumped to the upper floor in a rush to get to his people.

Once outside, he found thirty Mutants waiting for him.

They gave a Wakandan Salute.

"Young Prince, you fought valiantly…"

"You saved my son!"

"Where are you going now? Does the Queen know about this?"

"It's all part of the bigger issue. I'm going there now."

"What if more come?"

Brontë popped his claws, "You fight."

The Mutants watched him leave in a burst of lightning before gathering themselves in front of the building with makeshift weapons and scared eyes.

***

"Where is Bronte!?" Ororo yelled as everyone inside the building scrambled.

Brontë flew in through the window overlooking the entirety of Wakanda. Everyone so busy they didn't even notice as he floated overhead and landed in front of the Queen.

"Thank the gods. We must hurry." Ororo took off.

Brontë followed. They traveled up stairs and down long corridors before breaking out onto the foyer where he once met her for the first time. Units of Dora Milaje and Border Tribe members traveled alongside the Marube people to get to the front lines…. Wherever that was.

They entered the technical development room to find his siblings and the King waiting.

"How's Laura?" Daken asked.

"Where is Laura?" Gabbie asked.

"She's on ice. She'll join us when she's back to normal."

"I'll trust that because we don't have time for anything else." Daken said.

"That's why?"

"Not right now you FUCKING idiots! Do I have to remind you daddy wolf Mutant is home?!?" Raze slapped them both hard enough to bruise.

"Raze is right. Everyone take a look." T'Challa pulled up a holographic screen showing the layout of Wakanda.

A glowing dot hovered over the center.

"For the first time, I believe our location is perceivable by many outsiders. That bomb wasn't a bomb per se… it was an incredibly loud sonic locator. The aftershock still spreads."

"Telling them when and where to strike." Azari followed.

T'Challa nodded.

"Well where the hell are they?" Bronte questioned as he looked over the layout.

Workers and engineers started up aircraft and other advanced gears in the distance for soldiers ready and prepped.

"A man like Romulus doesn't get by on full frontal assaults. He's a strategist. He's working an angle. We need to know what. If this is a game of chess, then we're waiting for his move. That goes for Talocan as well."

Someone started coughing violently behind them.

They spun around to find the man bleeding from his eyes and mouth. His skin began to cover in bumps and blisters as he tore off his uniform to itch frantically.

"AHHHH HELP ME!"

Somewhere else a person began to cough and hurl.

Two more.

Eight more.

T'Challa put on his helmet. Gentle and Azari followed suit. Focused winds collected around Ororo's face. Put the palace on Quaranti—"

chzzck!

His wrist attachment vibrated as a voice interrupted, "My King, the water is tainte—UGH!!"

T'Challa began clicking away at the holographic screen, removing the layout of Wakanda and showing schematics for the inner city.

Men and women in lab coats surrounded him, "I'm cutting the city water. Get a sample from the dead and find a cure before turning it back on. Until you understand what it is, move as if you're already infected—"

"Omega Red." Daken interrupted.

Everyone looked at him. "He's putting his death spores in your water supply. By now he's incapacitated a quarter of your soldiers. They won't die. It weakens fast and over distance. But it's him."

Brontë caught the name like a snare. He remembered word of him from the files he'd gotten from his run in with Alpha Flight.

Omega Red was Russia's attempt at Wolverine.

Another possible successor. Another superpowered Mutant that wanted to kill him.

"How do w—"

"I don't know the cure. I've never seen one. You heal or you die."

"Love his positivity in times of terror." Raze smiled.

"Times of terror it is." T'Challa agreed, "You all get to work. Just because the outside world hasn't found a cure doesn't mean we can't. Wakanda is ahead."

The scientists nodded and took off.

The floor was nearly empty now.

"The rest of you, suit up."

Five floor tiles opened up, bringing up a series of suits. Vibranium laced mesh, hard metal elsewhere.

They slid into their war uniforms in a blur.

Daken's uniform was pure black. Stealthy, violent. A half mask covered his face, tied at the back with his hair. Almost none of his suit was Vibranium plating, allowing him to make use of one of his more unnoticed abilities. Flexibility.

Raze's uniform was heavier. More defensive. But his arms and face were fully exposed, allowing for his transformative abilities.

Gabbie looked like Wolverine if he was a teenage girl with connections to Wakanda. Those same flared ears on the mask. Yellow slash marks. And gloves fitted with guarded holes.

Bronte's suit was made in the same vein. Two ear guards birthed a nanotech face mask reminiscent of Wolverine. His dreads spilled over the flared ears. A bodysuit held his muscles like a second skin. He could feel the Vibranium lacing responding to the impacts of his magic. Where Laura had yellow slashes on her suit, Bronte had an active shifting slideshow of red, blue, green whites and yellows.

"I don't know if you're gay or dipped in gasoline." Raze said as he looked at Bronte.

"I'm too scared to laugh, but I want to." Gabbie said.

Ororo faced Bronte and wiped a tear.

"Don't say it."

"I was going to say, you look even less like him now. You're something new, Bronte."

"Let's hope that's what we need."

"Eyes up." T'Challa pulled up his screen and zoomed in to the desert ahead.

Sabertooth punched through the barrier.

Bronte's heart lit ablaze. The massive mutant hadn't aged a day. And he still held that cruel sneer.

In his hands he dragged an animal. Hairless except for the blonde mop on its head and snarling, swiping at him with steaming catlike claws.

Behind them, a familiar face followed. A woman covered in thin fur and claw.

"The whole trio's back, hot damn." Raze giggled and licked his chops.

It was the three. The same three that attacked the Institute.

But Wildchild was different.

It was just then that Sabertooth lifted Wildchild and threw him like a baseball. As he soared through the air, he began to glow a cruel shade of red like his blood was on fire.

He crashed into a cloaked aircraft and exploded, knocking down two others from the shockwaves.

"What the hell…." Bronte felt sick.

Suddenly T'Challa connected them to the barely salvageable intercoms of the downed ship. One of them at least.

All they could hear was fire. Then a grunt. From the overhead live feed of another aircraft, they watched Wildchild crawl out of the rubble and scamper off back to Sabertooth as his limbs and skin reformed. Brontë caught a glimpse of his glowing chest before his eyes darted back to Sabertooth— who entered the flaming rubble carelessly and grabbed the headset off the scorched corps in the cockpit.

"Hehehe…. Hey, kids."

Bronte's skin began to crawl.

"How'd ya like Wildhearts new trick? We thank Havoc for his genetic donations….haha. Now let's cut straight to business. Brontë— todays your birthday."

Brontë was so taken aback by the statement.

It actually was. And he…? Did they make it today on purpose?

"You know, your old man used to get a surprise from me every year on his day. He's not here these days, is he? So now I'll celebrate with you… every year. Until just like him, you die. So come on out. Romulus allowed me ten minutes with you! Don't piss me off, thunder-boy. Come celebrate!"

Brontë popped his claws, "Run it."

Before he could move, everyone in the room had him restrained in some form.

"Heat signatures!" T'Challa cut off the intercom and switched it to a layout of the city, showing the highlights of hundreds of bodies moving through the sewers of the now ghost city.

"Bomb the sewers! It's a distraction! Romulus is in the sewers!"