The line of light kept vibrating between us, separating us from the rest of the hallway.I looked at the symbol on his chest and then at that cold, faceless helmet. My patience was wearing thin.
"What are you doing here, Legion?"
"What do you think?" his answer came in that metallic, distorted tone. "Stopping the bad guys, saving the people they've locked up here… and, while I'm at it, saving your asses. You're welcome, by the way."
I snorted in contempt, feeling my pride sting.
"I don't need to be saved, and I certainly don't need your help," I snapped, raising the Soul Sword until its tip brushed the center of his visor. "I can save my friends on my own. I don't need help from a human, so don't get in my way if you don't want to end up in Limbo."
Legion didn't move. He didn't retreat even a millimeter from the magical steel. For a few seconds, he simply watched me through the helmet.
"Yeah, maybe you could," he finally said, and his voice lost its mocking edge. "But how many would die along the way? It's not just you and your friends who are in danger, Illyana. There are dozens of people in this place. People who came looking for help and are now sedated, locked in the basement against their will. If you go in there chopping heads, Martha will use them as human shields."
I looked away for a moment, thinking of Kitty's face just before the portal closed.
"That's your problem," I shot back, lowering the sword. "Since you like playing hero so much, go have fun saving people. I'm going after mine."
I turned, ready to risk another short jump, when I felt a firm hand on my shoulder.
"Listen to me," Legion's voice turned serious. "Saving people isn't a game. Neither is saving your friends. If you fail, they die. So stop acting like a child and start looking at the bigger picture."
How dare this human, I thought.
In an explosive movement, I spun and struck his arm to break free, using the momentum to slam him against the metal wall. I grabbed the collar of his armor with one hand, squeezing with all my strength, while the Soul Sword crackled inches from his helmet.
"Don't ever call me that again," I growled.
Legion didn't struggle. He stayed there against the wall, calm.
"You just have to work with me," he repeated softly. "That's all. I know how to end this without any innocent people dying. I know how to disable the inhibitors so you can regain your full power. But I need you to trust me. Please."
I stared at him, searching for any crack in his posture, any sign of betrayal.All I saw was my own furious reflection in his smooth helmet.
I thought of Kurt, of Jubilee, of the state they were in… and of how my jumps barely carried me to the next room. If I really wanted to get them out, those inhibitors had to go.
I shoved him away and lowered my sword, though I didn't dismiss it.
"Fine," I said grudgingly, looking away in annoyance. "Since you're so pathetic and desperate, the Queen of Limbo will help you. But if you try anything funny, I'll feed you to my demons."
===============================================================
POV: LEGION
I watched Illyana through my helmet's visor.
She's stubborn, proud, and dangerous. But she's exactly what I need to keep this from turning into a massacre.
I could use Ghostfreak. His invisibility and intangibility would be extremely useful, but… I've been suspecting him. More and more dangerous, depressive thoughts keep surfacing. I want to avoid using him unless it's absolutely necessary, at least until I find a solution.
I tapped the panel on my forearm, and a three-dimensional holographic map of the refuge projected between us, bathing our faces in a greenish glow.
"Look at this," I said, pointing to three blinking red dots in the building. "Frequency inhibitors. They generate a field that 'thickens' space. That's why your stepping disks only take you a few meters. I already have someone infiltrated in their system who can shut them down, but we need to act simultaneously."
I slid the map to the dining hall, the largest room in the complex, where most of the sedated people were being held.
"As soon as the inhibitors go down, you open a portal directly in the center of that room. I go in first, take down the guards, and secure the civilians. Then we jump to the basement for Kitty and the others. I'll also emit a low-frequency sound through the guards' radios to stun them for a few seconds. That's our window."
Illyana raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. She looked me up and down, judging me without any restraint.
"I know you're fast, Legion… the videos online show it," she murmured challengingly. "But that room is huge, and there are at least twenty guards. I don't think you're fast enough to deal with all of them before someone pulls a trigger."
I laughed softly, a metallic sound echoing inside the helmet, as I looked down at the Omnitrix on my wrist. The dial glowed with an eager green light.
"That's my normal speed, Illyana. I've been testing my limits. If I push this transformation to the maximum, I can do it."
I turned the dial, selecting the icon of the sleek, aerodynamic silhouette.
"But I need the portal exactly where I tell you. I can't waste even a microsecond running through hallways. When I push XLR8 to the limit, the strain is massive. It leaves me exhausted, and I need time to recover. This is a single shot, Illyana. One chance to clear the room before my body gives out."
She fell silent, processing the information. She knew how to recognize a tactical advantage when it was in front of her, even if it annoyed her.
"You'd better not pass out before the job's done, human," she finally said, with a crooked smile that was as close to a truce as I was going to get. "Get ready. The moment that light goes out, I open the portal."
"SID," I whispered. "Initiate countdown for inhibitor overload. Prepare maximum acceleration sequence."
"Understood, sir."
I adjusted the Omnitrix dial.
I started the countdown, my voice sounding deeper through the helmet.
"Three… two… one… NOW!"
Press the dial. Green light engulfed me, and in an instant my bone structure elongated, my feet became high-friction spheres, and my visor slid over my eyes.
"Shutting down inhibitor frequencies! Emitting sonic pulse in 3, 2, 1!" SID's voice rang in my ear, processed at a speed only I could follow now.
Illyana roared, slashing the air and tearing reality apart.
A massive stepping disk opened in front of us. We crossed the threshold, and the moment my feet touched the marble floor of the great hall, the world stopped.
For everyone else, it was a flash of light.For me, it was like stepping into a frozen photograph.
Sound vanished, replaced by a distant, dull hum.
I saw the Purifier soldiers barely lifting their hands toward their helmets, their faces beginning to contort in pain from the sonic frequency SID had injected into their ears. Dust particles hung motionless in the air.
I launched myself forward.
My spheres screeched against the floor, leaving trails of bluish friction.
I passed the first guard, snatched his rifle, bent it like paper, and struck him sharply at the base of the skull. Before his body could even begin to fall, I was already on the other side of the room.
One, two, five, ten guards.
Each one disarmed and incapacitated with precise blows.
I moved the sedated mutants, dragging them carefully toward the center of the hall, away from firing lines, forming a safety circle in less time than a human blink.
"Sir," SID's voice sounded clear, operating at my same processing frequency. "I detect seven shooters on the second-floor gallery. If you do not neutralize them now, they will have a firing angle on Rasputina once time normalizes."
"Understood, SID."
I didn't need stairs.
I ran straight up one of the columns, defying gravity. At the top, I saw the shooters.
I streaked across the catwalk like a blue bolt. Strike to the chin, sweep the legs, weapon disabled. One after another, all seven were down before the first speck of dust I kicked up below touched the ground.
I leapt back down to the center of the hall, landing right beside where Illyana was just finishing stepping through the portal. To her, I had vanished and reappeared in a millisecond.
Time began to flow again.
=====================================================
POV: ILLYANA
I clenched my teeth and poured all my will into the cut. The air tore open with a blast of pure energy, forming a disk that connected that claustrophobic hallway to the great hall.
"Now!" I roared.
I crossed the threshold with the Soul Sword raised, ready for slaughter. My boots hit the marble floor, but the moment they did, reality seemed to spasm.
There were no gunshots. No screams.
Just a faint rush of wind to my left, a barely perceptible fiiiuu, like a compressed gust of air sweeping through the room.
In the time it took me to blink, the scene completely changed. Nearly two dozen mutants were suddenly piled together in the center of the hall, safe.
Around them, the guards who should have been aiming at me were scattered across the floor like broken rag dolls.
And in the middle of that silent chaos, I saw the creature.
A slender alien with blue-and-black skin, an elongated head protected by a black-and-white visor. His claws rested on his knees, exhausted, and the strange spheres on his feet glowed red-hot, like metal melted by friction. His chest rose and fell as he gasped for air, and his legs trembled so violently it looked like he might collapse at any moment.
I froze.
My mind, accustomed to the speeds of Limbo, struggled to accept that this human had just cleared a room and rescued twenty people in less than a second.
I was impressed. I admit it. But the Queen of Limbo has a reputation to maintain. I closed my mouth, swallowed my awe, and lowered my sword just enough not to look like a rookie with her guard too high.
"Not bad… for a human," I muttered, trying to hide the amazement in my voice.
The alien didn't respond immediately. His breathing was heavy through the helmet. With a slow, trembling movement, he raised a hand and touched the symbol on his chest.
"We're… not… done," he panted, his distorted voice breaking.
From the symbol on his chest, a massive image emerged, a three-dimensional representation of the entire complex floating between us.
With an unsteady gesture, he zoomed in on the foundations. Beneath the main structure, buried deep under concrete, a massive basement was revealed.
"It's… there," he gasped. "That's where they're holding Kitty and the others. Martha is accelerating the process. If we don't go down now, there won't be anything left to save."
I looked at the map, then at him. His legs were still failing, but the determination in his posture was undeniable. He had given everything he had to save those strangers in the hall.
"Then stop shaking," I said, extending my hand to open a new stepping disk directly over the marked location. "We've got a basement to demolish."
===============================================================
The emptiness of Limbo swallowed us for a fraction of a second before spitting us out directly into the heart of the basement.
As we materialized, the air changed. It was cold and sterile.
We had no time to get our bearings. Five automated turrets anchored to the ceiling violently rotated toward us, their barrels lighting up in a threatening red.
Around the room, a dozen guards aimed pulse rifles at us, but they didn't seem to be in good shape.They staggered, gripping their weapons with unsteady hands; some clutched their helmets, shaking their heads.Legion's sonic attack seemed to have worked, but their fingers were still on the triggers.
Martha stood at the back of the room, next to a control console.There was nothing left of the sweet, maternal woman. Her face was twisted into a mask of fury as she stared at us.
My eyes, however, drifted toward the walls.My blood ran cold.
Five vertical containment tubes lined the chamber, filled with a viscous liquid.Inside, I saw the familiar silhouettes of Bobby, Kurt, John, and Jubilee. And at the end, in the tube closest to Martha, was Kitty.
"You're late, Illyana!" Martha shouted, slamming her hand onto the console's keyboard. "If you take one more step, the dose they'll receive won't be to put them to sleep. It'll dissolve them from the inside out."
I glanced sideways at Legion.
He was still trembling, steam pouring from his suit and the spheres of his feet still hot.We were surrounded by turrets and dizzy guards, with my friends trapped in glass tubes.
"Tell me you have a plan for the turrets," I hissed at Legion, never taking my eyes off the barrels trained on us.
He took a step forward, his spheres lightly screeching against the cold floor.
"Not another step!" Martha yelled, her finger trembling over the console's emergency button. "I'm warning you, Legion. One single move and I'll activate the purge sequence. They'll all turn into genetic soup before you can blink."
Legion didn't stop.
He took another slow step, completely ignoring the turret barrels tracking his torso. His calm voice emerged from the helmet.
"Martha Vancroft," he said, and the tone wasn't threatening, but heavy with disappointed melancholy. "Born in Chicago, 1975. St. Jude Elementary School, where you won the national science award at eleven years old. Northview High School, graduated with honors."
Martha froze. Her fingers moved a few millimeters away from the button. Amazement began to seep through her mask of hatred.
"You went on to Columbia University," Legion continued, taking another step as the dizzy guards slightly lowered their weapons, confused. "A doctorate in Biochemistry and another in Molecular Genetics. You were a brilliant young woman, Martha. One of the most promising minds of your generation. You had the potential to eradicate diseases, to change the world from a laboratory."
He stopped a few meters from the turrets.
"It deeply saddens me to see what you've become," he concluded with a sigh. "A butcher hiding behind a robe of faith to justify her own cruelty. All that knowledge, wasted in a basement full of fear."
Martha blinked several times, visibly shaken.
For a second, I saw the scientist she once was, lost behind years of fanaticism. But the doubt was fleeting. Her face hardened again, though this time there was a trace of twisted respect in her gaze.
"Well…" she whispered, regaining her composure with effort. "I see that the rumors about Legion's intelligence gathering are no joke. You know how to read a file, I'll give you that. But knowing who I was changes nothing."
I moved an inch closer to Legion, whispering without moving my lips.
"What are you doing? You're just making her angrier."
"Distracting her," he replied on a frequency only I could hear. "I need ten seconds for the command bridge. Don't stop watching the turrets."
"June 14th," he spoke again, ignoring the weapons trained on him. "The day you received your first doctorate. You went out to celebrate with your parents and your two younger siblings. They wanted something special, so you went to The Eagle's Nest restaurant, up in the mountains of Colorado. A perfect afternoon, wasn't it?"
Martha went pale. The finger hovering over the purge button began to tremble violently.
"Shut up!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "You don't know anything!"
"Until the mountain started to shake," Legion continued. "A clash between the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants reached the area. The mutant known as Avalanche caused an earthquake to bury the heroes, but instead buried the restaurant. Your parents. Your siblings. All of them died under tons of rock. You were the only one who crawled out of the rubble."
"I SAID SHUT UP!" Martha sobbed now, hatred blazing in her eyes. "They killed them! My brothers were just children, and my parents… they were so proud… But those abominations… those monsters only bring destruction and death wherever they go!"
"The pain consumed you, Martha," Legion said gently. "The Purifiers found you when you were an empty shell and gave you a purpose: to turn that hatred into genocidal science."
"I did it so no one else would suffer what I did!" she roared, completely losing control. "If they don't exist, the world is safe. If I exterminate them all, my family can finally rest."
Legion tried to take another step forward, extending a claw toward her in a gesture of persuasion.
"Mutants aren't the only ones who do evil, Martha. Humans destroy too. Don't let your family's memory be stained with the blood of these kids—"
"Too late!" she shrieked, a deranged smile spreading across her face.
With a sharp motion, Martha slammed the red button on the console.
"NO!" I screamed, lunging forward.
The sound of valves opening rang out like a starting gun for my friends' execution. The viscous liquid in the tubes began to flow, running through the pipes toward their tanks… and then, abruptly, it stopped.
Martha slammed the console once, twice, her eyes wide with confusion.
"What—? No! Purge! I said purge!" she screamed, pounding the keyboard.
"SID," Legion's voice echoed through the room. "Incapacitate only."
The five ceiling-mounted turrets that had us in their sights rotated on their axes. In a fraction of a second, they opened fire, but not at us.
The bursts struck with precision, hitting shoulders, legs, hands. There were no deaths, only screams of pain and the clatter of rifles hitting the floor. One by one, the soldiers collapsed, clutching their wounds as the turrets shifted into guard mode, now protecting us.
Martha staggered backward, tripping over her own robe as she stared at the chaos around her.
Legion, steam still venting from his joints and the red glow of his feet fading, stepped toward her.
He looked exhausted, but his alien form made him imposing.
"I tried to do this the easy way, Martha," Legion said. "I offered you a way out. A chance to remember who you were before hatred consumed you. But you chose to press that button."
I stepped forward, spinning my sword. Blue-silver light reflected off the glass of the tubes where Kitty was still trapped.
"Now step away from that console," I hissed, locking eyes with her, "or I promise you the earthquake you survived in Colorado will feel like a gentle breeze compared to what I'll do to you."
===========================================================
POV: LEGION
I watched Illyana out of the corner of my eye as she rushed toward the containment tubes.
I saw her pull Kitty and the others free, holding them briefly, checking for injuries.
My legs, still in XLR8 form, vibrated faintly with residual inertia, but I held my ground in front of Martha.
"It's over," I declared, my voice hissing through the visor of my transformation. "You'll be handed over to the authorities. I've already extracted every piece of evidence from your servers. Every experiment. Every name. Everyone involved will pay for what they've done here."
Martha, kneeling on the floor, let out a dry, barely audible laugh.
She wiped a string of saliva from the corner of her mouth and looked at me calmly.
"Pay?" she whispered. "Oh, little savior… this isn't over yet. You haven't won. You've only activated the final security protocol."
At that moment, SID's voice rang out in my internal comms.
"Sir, emergency security activation detected. Final containment protocols have been released in the lower sector. Two high-risk subjects have been freed from isolation cells. Extreme caution advised. The first subject is—"
SID didn't finish the analysis.
Despite my accelerated XLR8 senses, something shattered that perception. It wasn't a movement I could anticipate; it was a sudden, massive impact.
Before I could even register it, a powerful, blindingly fast blow struck me square in the face. Raw force and speed, exceeding my own inertia. I heard the crack of my visor just before losing contact with the ground.
I went flying, smashing through a medical instrument table that folded like paper under my weight. My body didn't stop until it slammed into the concrete wall at the far end of the room, spiderwebbing it with cracks.
The world spun.
A deafening ring filled my ears, and through the static flickering across my damaged visor, I saw Martha slowly rising with a look of satisfaction, staring at the place where I should have been standing.
Across the room, I saw Illyana. She had no time to react. A dense, powerful burst of green energy shot toward her from the shadows.
She reacted instantly. She raised her Soul Sword, blocking the impact in an explosion of magical sparks that lit up the entire basement. Her boots skidded across the floor from the force.
"Go! Get them somewhere safe, ALL of them!" I shouted, or at least I tried to.
She wasn't stupid.
With her friends sedated and vulnerable, she couldn't fight a two-front war.
With a swift motion of her free arm, she opened a stepping disk beneath Kitty and the others. She cast one last look at me and crossed the portal just before it closed, leaving the basement in silence.
Only then did I see the attackers.
I froze as SID projected biometric profiles across my retina.
Hellion and Speed.
Two young mutants who should've been in school, not here.
But their faces… empty shells.
Each wore a metallic headband with a small violet gem embedded in the center.
They walked toward Martha like machines.
Hellion took position to her left, his hands wrapped in the same green telekinetic aura that had struck Illyana.
Speed stood to her right, vibrating constantly, betraying his super-speed.
Martha smiled, patting each of them on the head as if they were pets.
"Well, well…" she mocked, looking at me amid the wreckage. "Looks like your little friend abandoned you, Legion. You're all alone now with my angels."
"Sir," SID said in my comms, "targets are in clear firing lines. Shall I proceed with lethal force?"
From the center of the room, Martha watched me with smug superiority.
She probably sees me as a cornered animal.
I let out a dry laugh, metallic and distorted, which clearly unsettled her.
"What are you laughing at, 'hero'?" she snapped, jaw clenched as she stroked her 'angels' heads. "You're alone. Your friend ran, and my boys will tear you apart before you can take a step."
"It's just that…" I paused to catch my breath. "I was thinking about how ridiculous and convenient all of this is. Like the comics I used to read. No matter how perfect the plan is, something always goes wrong at the last second to complicate the hero's mission. There's always a final boss. Always a dramatic twist."
Martha raised an eyebrow, staring at me with confusion and disdain, like she was listening to the ravings of a dying man.
"I have no idea what stupid nonsense you're talking about."
I straightened fully, ignoring the pain and the flood of warning alerts from SID, and locked my gaze on the two controlled mutants.
"It doesn't matter if you understand," I said, bracing my body for one last effort. "Because just like in the comics… in the end… the hero always wins."
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HEEEELLOOO, HOW ARE YOU ALL? I HOPE YOU'RE DOING WELL AND THAT YOU HAD A GREAT NEW YEAR'S CELEBRATION. I ATE SOME AMAZING CANNELLONI MADE BY MY GRANDMA, SO I HAD A FANTASTIC TIME, HEHE.
THIS IS AS FAR AS WE'LL GO WITH TODAY'S CHAPTER. ILLYANA AND LEGION MANAGED TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR GOAL, BUT A FINAL THREAT NOW STANDS BEFORE THEM. THESE TWO YOUNG AND POWERFUL MUTANTS SEEM TO HAVE BEEN CAPTURED AND CONTROLLED BY THIS ORGANIZATION. I WONDER WHAT OUR PROTAGONIST WILL DO, AND WHAT THESE DIADEMS COULD BE?