House of Agon #8 'Rebellion pt.2'

A few minutes ago,

Black Bolt had taken flight and separated from Crystal. He flew beyond supersonic speeds and surveyed the entire city within seconds. Along the way, he spotted two things. First, he found the location where the invaders were originating and immediately came to a conclusion that angered him to a degree. Second, he saw a white crystalline object enveloped in grayish-white fog or mists. Although he had no experience or contact with Primagen, from the stories he had heard from the family and the experience he had with Terrigen he could easily identify what it was.

Black Bolt dove down on the structure the mutated Inhumans were coming from and crashed through several floors of the building reaching a large hangar-sized basement. Black Bolt wasn't surprised by what he saw in the room. Three council members were standing in glass containers and surrounding them was a battalion worth of mutated Inhumans.

Due to the method of his entrance, Black Bolt quickly became the center of attention. The mutated Inhumans backed away seeing the fabled Midnight King in full regalia.

"You idiots he isn't that strong anymore, why do you think he wasn't there during the invasion. You've all been empowered by the mists just end this swan song. Who doesn't want to be the one to kill the destroyer of our ancestors," the representative of House Arctilan yelled.

Hearing the shout made them stop their retreat. Although they had grown up hearing the stories of the Midnight King they also knew the end of that story, and it wasn't a good ending. Black Bolt no longer had his strongest power, he could still fly and was strong but that was it. With a bit over one thousand, there was no reason they couldn't beat him. Also, it was true the story of the Midnight King had detailed how he had not only destroyed their cities time and time again but also how he had broken their law numerous times unpunished and killed the remainder of their people.

Black Bolt quickly found himself under siege. He found himself under the barrage of hundreds of attacks. Not moving an inch, Black Bolt stared at the incoming attacks and energy gathered around the fork on his forehead. The energy formed a shield in front of him and clashed with the attacks. Smoke and dust filled the air after the collision. On the side of the Primagen empowered Inhumans some of them had abilities capable of clearing the air around them, so they could all see Black Bolt's position clearly. They stared waiting for the smoke to clear the area, but a scream drew their attention elsewhere.

Black Bolt was standing over one of their comrades. The comrade in question was crumpled on the ground at his feet retching violently. While they were still registering that, Black Bolt wasted no time. He charged into their ranks and let off a massive blast strong enough to shake the surface over a dozen floors above them.

He swept through their ranks like a storm. Nowhere was this fabled weak King living on past glories. They witnessed the power of Midnight King at a level most people had never seen before. The backline shot off energy blasts of different kinds at Black Bolt. He extended his hands forward and made a grabbing motion toward the energy. The energy gathered in his hands, he spun in place and lashed out behind him using the energy like a whip.

Watching from afar the rebelling council members grew anxious. They had been confident that Crystal was the only and biggest threat they'd face. Although they knew Black Bolt had managed to survive the attack of the invaders alone, non-mutated Inhumans had also managed to deal with them relatively easily from the reports they read. Now they watched as Black Bolt fought against hundreds of mutated Inhumans and he was winning by a landslide. They decided to speed up the process and started their Terrigenesis disregarding the safety measures.

The containers quickly filled with mists. In the times before the mists would be thin and the person could still be seen from the outside. This time though the mists were so thick if someone who was seeing these containers for the first time came upon them, they'd think it was meant to be opaque.

Black Bolt could see what was happening but being in the middle of defending against a few hundred attacks he couldn't do anything at the moment. So he focused on the task at hand, and his speed and strength increased. His every movement became incomparably violent, a simple punch carried the power of several. He punched toward an unsuspecting Inhuman who was covered in scales with a red glow shining from between them. When the punch connected the red light grew brighter and then exploded outward.

The light almost became solid as it poured out. Black Bolt recognized it as energy and tried to contain it. Black Bolt stood in place energy could be seen coming from the tuning fork on his head and wrapping around a red ball of energy. It took all of his focus to contain this blast.

One of the other Inhumans surrounding him took this as a chance, he fired off a blast of pure plasma at Black Bolt's back. It did little damage but seeing that he didn't react, he continued. Soon more people joined in and drowned Black Bolt in attacks.

Under several dozen attacks, Black Bolt's focus began to slip and that was all it took for the energy to just barely squeeze its way out of his containment.

The redlight silently swept through the room and everywhere it passed was left scarred.

Boooooooooom!!!

An explosion sounded in two places. One was the machine containing and drawing out the mists of the Primagen Crystal. The other came from Black Bolt who landed not far from that machine, as the effects of one focused attack from a dozen people finally pushed him away.

Black Bolt himself was mentally taxed from containing the red energy. It had been weakened significantly during the time he was containing it, otherwise although a bit weaker it would've been enough to at the very least a portion of the city would've disappeared.

Because of this mental exhaustion, he was unaware that one of his biggest fears was about to become a reality.

When the redlight swept past the machine it destroyed the Primagen Crystal's containment and released the mists which were being filtered and diluted to activate Terrigenesis. Black Bolt landed nearby this raw crystal and undiluted mists.

While gathering himself and under another barrage of attacks he failed to notice the Primagen Crystal he'd been standing on for only a moment. But a moment long enough to spell disaster for him.

While the Inhumans had come to know the effects and how to use Terrigen rather well, near the end of their time on Earth just before destroying the last of the Terrigen. They learned that they knew very little about it and when they were informed of Primagen they learned that they knew even less than they thought they did. So when they moved to the World Farm, those who had already been there before quickly gathered more and left it to be studied. That is why there had been no Inhumans undergoing Terrigenesis for years. They still knew very little about Primagen.

So when Black Bolt's leg began to crystalize he was confused but attempted to act anyway. But to his surprise, he couldn't move. He decided to deal with the attacks first, extending his hands he grabbed the energy he could and redirected it back to the attackers. Some of the attacks being solid still landed around and on him despite shielding himself. While his enemy recovered he was trying to get away from the Primagen Crystal.

But that proved to be a challenge even for him. A challenge that would only get more challenging. While checking to see if they recovered in his peripheral vision he spotted what he thought was another attack heading at him. He put up another shield but the 'attack' skirted around it and continued. He repeated this a few more times before he realized what it was.

Black Bolt felt his heart become acquainted with his feet. His eyes widened and his mouth was left agape for a moment. His expression warped into one of defiance and anger. His brow furrowed, eyes narrowed, and mouth widened. Despite rarely being able to talk after losing his scream, for this moment he wanted nothing more than to roar. He wanted to let out the mightiest bellow he could, the scream to end all screams. He wanted his voice to rip apart this reality, everything and one holding it together. But reality had other plans, he was muffled before the world could hear the last cry of the Midnight King.

The Inhumans had stopped their attacks as they watched Black Bolt fight with this anomalous attack. They didn't know who had sent it out but with all the effort he put into blocking it, they knew it must be deadly. So they watched thinking they would witness what would be remembered as a great moment in history. When dawn finally arrived and the Midnight King was put to rest. But one action had stoked their fear. In the time since Black Bolt appeared and they attacked, he had effortlessly fought against one thousand Inhumans with powers. He displayed power and strength they had never even heard of in the stories of him. A skill in combat they probably couldn't hope to match. They only gained the upper hand when he put more focus on containing a blast that very likely would've killed them all and despite being a ground zero for it, all he had to show for the blast was a few scrapes and a torn outfit.

With everything he displayed they wondered if they started to realize that for some reason he had chosen not to kill them. But watching him go from fearful to angry and open his mouth, they feared that they would hear the royal decree that would declare their deaths. They braced themselves and waited for their ends. But then they saw that anomaly of an attack muzzle the king as it shot into his mouth and down his throat, the crystal encasing his leg spread even further to encase his body.

Then silence, it was over, there was nothing, not even movement. They waited and watched but Black Bolt hadn't moved, he became a bug trapped in amber.

"Hahahaha, that will be a great museum piece. We can tell our children and grandchildren of the dishonorable deeds of the Midnight King and how he fell. How the Primagen judged him to be unworthy," a voice sounded out from behind them.

The three council members at some point had gotten behind the group. No one knew when or how they got there but they were there and if not for the crazed almost fanatical voice of house Arctilans representative then they wouldn't even recognize them.

"I believe our people have a tradition of taking on a new name after the transformation. I think I will take on the name Paradox," his voice echoed from two opposite ends of the room.

This display of power was confusing and no one could tell what it was. But his show of power was short-lived despite his rambling and diving back into his tirade, he could only capture everyone's focus for a moment before something far more pressing took precedence.

The ground began to rumble, dust, and debris fell from the ceiling and floors above, and the sound of something cracking could faintly be heard. Though the cracking sound was drowned out by Paradox's tirade.

But soon he was silenced, in fact, there was no sound even though everyone tried to speak. Suddenly there was something that although they couldn't hear they could feel it. Something pushed all the air in the room past them and out of the room. They were without air for not even a second, but when it came back a roar followed loud and deep.

"NOOO!"

The sky above them became as clear as day, the walls suddenly expanded before disappearing and being replaced with rock and dirt, and they found themselves standing in a crater. Completely unaware of how they survived despite nothing in the vicinity doing so. At the center of the crater with his eyes and mouth blazing blue and encased in bright blue energy was Black Bolt.

Looking around once again they concluded, and that conclusion made them shake to their very core. The Midnight King had been reborn and by looking at the wild energy arcs that surrounded him and what could be seen of his expression, he was pissed.

Black Bolt stared and honed in on the Council Members and despite being only a look his sole focus being on them caused the energy around him to lash out wildly completely atomizing the ground and ionizing the air drawing the energy away for a moment to wildly spread.

They once again concluded the Midnight King was back, stronger and immensely pissed off.