CHAPTER 123

Yeehoo! Just rounded up my exams, guess some celebrations are in order.

Uploads will go back to normal, 5 chaps a week. God! It feels as if it's been so long since I last posted.

Hope you guys enjoy your holidays like I plan on enjoying mine.

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The ensuing fight started as soon as Victor Creed confronted Logan. Before Logan finished his words, Victor used his superior speed and crashed into Logan and pierced his skin with his claws and ripped them out, causing Logan to grunt but also not enough for him to not retaliate as he drove his claws into the wild man's shoulders. The two of them forewent all forms of decorum and began thrashing around each other like beasts in the wild; slashing, grunting and roaring. They created an entire battlefield for themselves as everyone knew to steer clear away from them.

"Come on boy! Try and kill me!" Victor laughed even as blood poured out of his mouth. "Maybe I should take that lil girl away from you. You are losing your edge these days!" He riled up Logan who responded in kind as he ripped off the battered form of his suit leaving him with only his pants. He swiped his claws in an uppercut sway and created three long hashed on Victor's chest to his nose, bifurcating his throat in the process but the man didn't seem to care as he scratched at Logan's jaws, opening new cuts there. 

Theirs was an unending battle as both were beasts of stamina and regeneration, forsaking durability for pure offense. They swiped their claws at any clone that was foolish enough to come near, ripping off their head and limbs. 

Off to the side a rather heated battle was going as Ororo faced off against the glass-like meta who could absorb energy and redirect it; drowning their battle into a heated give and take. 

It ticked her off how the man could siphon off whatever lightning she threw at him and struck her with it, either with lightning or in the form of light beams.

"Enough!" She raised her hands towards him and shot out lightning at Prism. 

"You don't learn, do you?" The glass-like man seemed unfazed at the incoming lightning and just let it hit him. But unlike before, instead of Ororo to trade strikes with him, she continued charging her previous lightning strike that it soon wrapped around the body of Prism. Feeling something was wrong, Prism tried to redirect the energy that was filling up his body back at her, only for him to realize that the lightning was binding him in a way that should not have been possible. 

"I… Said… Enough!" Not caring about his face of incomprehension, Ororo pulled back her hand and the lightning drew Prism towards her before she smashed him hard off the ground before sending him flying off into the distance. "Good riddance."

… 

While all this was going on, Natasha was fighting against Mystique and as much as she hated to admit it, the shape shifter was one hell of a fighter. 

She knew more fighting types than even Natasha herself did with the only thing keeping the redhead in battle was her improved strength which almost seemed useless against the woman and her agility which she would gladly say was on par with the woman or at least with a slight difference. 

"You seem frustrated sweetheart, don't tell it's that time for you? Oh my." Natasha, though aggravated by every word that came out of the woman's mouth, managed not to show it, not even a single change in expression. "Tsk, why such a buzzkill? You won't get a boyfriend that way, you know."

She increased the ferocity of her attacks by a level with every sentence that came out of the woman's mouth. "You know, I thought the Brotherhood were supposed to fight against metahuman oppression, but seeing as how you would ally yourself with someone who would run experiments on them, makes me think otherwise." Mystique paused at Natasha's words, looking genuinely confused for a second which was a mistake as Natasha gave her a fully powered punch which threw her to the ground. 

She wobbled for a bit while standing up before turning to look at Natasha with a rageful frown on her face. "What would you know?" Mystique said through gritted bloodied teeth. "He killed Magneto… He killed the only man who could help us!" Her form changed as she turned into Victor Creed and snarled at Natasha. 

Natasha was thinking about how to engage the woman who was outright angry when she felt a tap on her shoulders. "Go take care of the one creating the portal. I got some unfinished business with her." Bucky said.

Natasha didn't say anything else and put her feet on motion leaving Bucky alone with the shape shifted Sabretooth. "Oh, what is this? Do I sense some feelings in your actions? Well I can't say I'm surprised, we redhead's got the charm going for us after all." She teased him but like everything else that has tried to rulile him up, he remained as stoic as he always was. 

"I want to get this done as quickly as possible so I'll be going first." She reacted as soon as those words left his mouth but it still turned out that she still wasn't fast enough as Bucky's metal arm buried himself deep inside her stomach fueled by a speed she thought was impossible from him. 

From what she knew, he was a super soldier and even if she didn't mean to brag, she was sure she could take care of a super soldier with relative ease and from everything she knew and heard, Bucky Barnes was a super soldier. 

Her thought was cut short as a hand grabbed her throat and lifted her up before slamming her down to the ground. 

Bucky pointed his metal arm at the woman, wanting to end her then and there but he just shrugged and walked away. With the way he was sure he had broken numerous bones in her body, unless she had an impressive regeneration factor like Draul's, getting back into the fight, or any other fights for the next few hours, was impossible. 

BOOOOOM! CRASH! 

"Could they at least take their fight somewhere else?" He muttered under his breath as he watched the two spearheaders going at it, while at the same time destroying everything. 

"Such strength! It makes me want you even more." Essex said as he maintained his distance from Draul. He had to acknowledge the fact that this mutant known as Draul was truly powerful. Forming an hypothesis and seeing the actual results were always two different things. 

"Why don't you work for me, eh? I can help you bring your abilities to levels you never knew of. You will have nothing to fear on this earth." Essex stretched his hands in a welcoming gesture only to lose it the next moment. Looking at the new stump, he sighed. "This is becoming meaningless. There is no way for you to kill me… I am immortal." There really was no way to kill him from what he knew. Sure he could be disintegrated down to his last cells but even in a scenario like that, he had a backup. The ability to manipulate his flesh to his cells negated any kind of physical damage he could receive as he would simply manipulate his body to heal. 

Draul looked at the man and could not help but twitch his lips involuntarily. How envious he was of the ability to regenerate limbs and tissues, even organs. Such an ability could easily make someone immortal and immune to aging and any physical defects. 

But regardless… 

SLASH! 

It still didn't stop him from dissecting Essex before he got the chance to react. Essex was fast, like very fast that normal humans would only see a blur or even nothing when he moved but compared to Draul's reaction speed, his speed was the same as Steve's – it made no difference. 

Draul had an ice sword construct in hand that he used in cutting Essex to pieces the moment the man lost focus. He wasn't rampantly attacking Essex because he thought that it would be useless given that the man could most likely switch consciousness with any of the clones present and Draul didn't want that, so he settled for keeping the immortal test subject away from the rest of the battle. 

But even that was starting to become boring as the second ticked away. By now, a visible scowl had emerged on the man's face as he looked at Draul with a healthy mix of anger and contempt. 

"I see that I must educate you, that in terms of powers and ability… I am unmatched." Red beams shot out from his hands, beams that were eerily similar to Scott's lasers but packed more heat, arrived in front of Draul in the blink of an eye who did nothing but let the beam crash into the magnetic barrier that he made. 

The beam subsided to show a transformed Essex, Mr. Sinister, in a getup that Draul recognized. His eyes were blood red in whole and his pristine two-piece suit had transformed into what would be aptly termed as a costume. An all-black costume with a red diamond symbol on the chest and numerous amounts of stripes that ran from the shoulders to the floor. 

"As much as I hate the whole hero/villain costume thing, I, however, have to admit that that was cool." Draul commented with a whistle. 

Sinister made no remark in the comment and just waved his hands in Draul's direction and a concussive blast was sent his way but the man still made no reaction. "I see that everyone is almost done with their task so I should get started." He heard the man's voice behind him but cared not as metal spikes shot out from his back hoping to pin the human but all he received were the same spikes shooting him across the platform on which he stood to the nearby wall and pinning him there. 

His body morphed into a liquid state and escaped the bindings of the spikes. "I see that my predictions came through. You do have his ability… Magnificent!" Mr. Sinister's red eyes shone even more in obsession as he looked at Draul as if he wanted nothing more to do than wrap up the man in a box and take him to his lab. 

"You know, you really should pay attention when someone is trying to kill you y'know." Draul said lazily which prompted a scoff out of Sinister. 

"What part of me being immortal don't you understand?"

"The part where you actually believe that you can't die." Draul remarked. 

"Even if what you say might be true, it doesn't change the fact that you have no possibility of killing me, so my statement still stands as true."

"Then let's put that assumption to the test." Draul slashed the sword at Sinister and a jet of flames rushed at man who half assumed the attack to be water based, not that it would have made any difference as a force field blocked the flames, resulting in an explosion that engulfed their surroundings, causing those nearby to escape before they were eaten by the flames. 

"I'm curious. How did you find out about me?" The atmosphere between the two of them could be described as relaxed, not at all resembling the surroundings of destruction around them. "I know for a fact that it wasn't the X-Men, I made sure of that. S.H.I.E.L.D remained a variable but I think I know the kind of man that Nick Fury is. He chases the clues until he finds something, another way to say that give him a clue and he'll run all over the world for you. It then remains you – the most unpredictable variable. So tell me, how did you find out about me?"

"Can you stop with the talk? It's almost as pointless as this fight is." Draul grumbled but the moment Mr. Sinister made to retort, he was up on the man again with his blade slicing through the neck, decapitating the man. He pointed a finger at the flying head and sent a bit of chaotic energy and completely obliterated it. 

He held the grumble that wanted to come out of his mouth as the body melted into a puddle of flesh and reformed itself. "I wonder what it will take for you to understand how fruitless your actions are. Though that beam you shot just now, it carried such destructive properties that can destroy down to the atomic level… not sub-atomic yet… hmm." The man ignored Draul as he tried to understand the properties of the energy Draul used but soon gave up. "I think this calls for an experiment. Don't you think so?" If he couldn't understand it, then he'll just have to make Draul use that energy. A very nice ability to add to his arsenal. 

Without giving Draul the chance, he pressed forth in his attack, first a compressed air blast and then, hands spewed forth from his back and attacked Draul from different angles. 

Draul took a step back and brandished his sword and performed multiple slashes, some sent ice blades while others were lightning that cut through the appendages of Sinister. He turned around only to find Sinister gone, at least that was what others would think, but not Draul as he could already sense the man around him… a few centimeters away from him in fact. 

One of the cut off limbs dissolved into a puddle of flesh that grew into Sinister only for it to be frozen solid in less than a second before Draul bathed the half ice sculpture of Mr. Sinister in destructive energy. 

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