Chapter 36 - Fire and Ruin
The chamber detonated into chaos.
Steel giants lurched from hidden panels, their cannons vomiting fire. The floor shook as if the mountain itself raged against the trespass.
Storm's hands shot skyward - winds shrieked, lightning forked, frying two robots into smoldering heaps. Banshee's scream ripped through the din, shattering glass and shorting circuits. Colossus waded into the fray like a living battering ram, his fists turning robot skulls into scrap.
Cyclops cut the battlefield into lanes with precise ruby beams. Every shot was an order, every blast a command. Stay sharp. Move. Cover the flank. His visor sang discipline while his heart hammered fear - Logan smelled it, sharp as copper wire, wrapped in control.
And Logan himself?
He dove headlong into the storm, claws carving metal like butter, letting sparks and shrapnel rake his skin. He wanted the pain. Needed it. Every cut dragged him deeper into the trance. The world slowed - bullet-time again the whine of servo-motors became a lullaby, the tremor of enemy footsteps a guide. He moved like instinct wearing a man's skin.
But then came Thunderbird.
The Apache warrior bellowed a war cry, slamming into the thickest knot of robots. He tore one's arm free and clubbed another with it, savage and reckless, raw power with no restraint.
"Thunderbird, fall back!" Cyclops barked. "Shut it, one-eye! I don't need your leash!"
And for a while, it worked. His fury was a fire that melted circuits. But fire burns uncontrolled. A robot's cannon whined, loosed a searing blast and Thunderbird, too slow to dodge, took the hit full in the chest. He roared, collapsing to one knee, smoke curling from scorched flesh.
"John!" Storm cried, winds faltering.
But Thunderbird shoved himself upright, eyes burning. "Ain't dead yet!" he spat, and hurled himself back into the fight even as his wounds tore deeper with every movement.
The Count watched it all from his dais, cape swirling, eyes fever-bright.
"Magnificent! Such valor! Such futility!" His laughter drowned the gunfire. "Yes! Die for me, little pawns! Every second you bleed, the world burns closer to annihilation!"
The robots fell, one by one. Logan ripped out throats of steel, Sunfire's inferno melted ranks, Colossus crushed them like paper toys. At last, the chamber lay littered with wreckage sparking, smoking, silent.
Count Nefaria stood alone.
Logan's nose filled with it the reek of madness, so potent it felt like it could set the world aflame.
He believes this. He believes the world is already his coffin, and us just nails in the lid.
The Count stepped down, slow, deliberate. His eyes burned like jewels, his voice velvet over poison.
"You think you've won? No. You've only brought yourselves here to kneel at the altar of my vengeance."
He raised both arms. Energy flared around him, crackling like liquid lightning. For all his aristocratic poise, the power was raw, brutal, enough to stagger even Colossus.
"X-Men," Cyclops barked, "on me! Take him down!"
The final battle ignited Count Nefaria against the full fury of the new X-Men.