CHAPTER 110 - THE LAST EMBER
The cold was endless. A wall of white gnawing teeth, biting through fur, muscle, bone. Hank's eyelids felt like stone, his breath like glass breaking in his lungs. He forced them open anyway.
"No... no sleep," he muttered, voice hoarse, nearly frozen in his throat. "Not yet. Not while she-"
Jean lay limp in his arms, her breath shallow, skin pale as the snow itself. Her fiery hair whipped in the storm, the only defiance left in this wasteland.
'Every instinct says lie down. Rest. Just for a minute. But a minute's a coffin out here.'
Hank gritted his teeth and pushed forward, muscles screaming, each step an act of violence against his own body. His legs were made to leap across rooftops, wrestle Sentinels, not wade knee-deep in Antarctic snow. But he carried her all the same.
Then-light. A flash above the storm. For a moment he thought his brain was shutting down, painting false suns in his dying vision. But no-it moved. Rotors.
A helicopter.
"HEY! Down here!" Hank bellowed, his voice cracking apart. He waved one arm, nearly dropping Jean. "DOWN-"
The chopper didn't turn. It banked away, lost in the clouds.
"No... NO!" Hank staggered, dropped to one knee, snow burning against his skin. He shook Jean's shoulder. "Jean! Wake up! You have to wake up-show them-flare, fire, anything!"
Her eyes snapped open-wild, glowing with panic. "SCOTT!"
The snow erupted. Chunks of frozen earth tore upward as Jean's mind lashed out, trying to dig through a mile of ice and fire back to where she believed the others were buried. The ground shook under Hank's feet.
"Jean-stop!" He caught her wrists, shaking her. "They're gone. Do you hear me? GONE. If you keep this up, you'll bury us too!"
She gasped, chest heaving, and the storm around them stilled. She collapsed against him, trembling, tears freezing on her cheeks.
Above, the helicopter banked back, this time sweeping low. The pilot must have seen the disturbance. A light stabbed through the snow, locking onto them.
Hank roared with what strength he had left, waving both arms. "HERE! HERE, DAMN YOU!"
The craft descended, the downdraft tearing snow into whirlwinds. A door opened, hands reached.
Hank pushed Jean upward first, shouting, "Take her! She's freezing!" Then he hauled himself in after her, collapsing against the metal floor, his chest heaving like a broken bellows.
Jean stirred weakly in the pilot's arms, eyes glassy. "Scott... I couldn't save them, Scott..."
Hank pulled her close, whispering through numb lips. "Rest now, Jean. Just rest. If there's one thing I can promise... it's that the X-Men aren't that easy to bury."
The helicopter rose, swallowed by the storm.
And far below, the earth groaned, as if something ancient shifted in its sleep.
The earth split with a groan like a dying god. The lava hissed, slowed, froze in jagged rivers of black as Storm's arms lifted high, her body trembling with the strain. White hair whipped across her face, her eyes blazing silver as she forced the sky itself to answer.
"WIND-FREEZE! HOLD IT BACK!"
She was shaking, her voice ragged. Frost spilled from her lips, and for a moment the molten tide slowed enough to give them hope.
"Move!" Cyclops barked, visor blazing. He and Sunfire blasted side by side, raw power carving open stone, cutting tunnels where none should exist. Each blast echoed like cannon fire. Beside them, Colossus hammered through weakened walls, fists breaking paths in the bedrock. Banshee's scream tore new cracks where fists couldn't reach.
Thunderbird shoved through debris with sheer fury, muscles straining, sweat rolling despite the ice around them. "Keep moving! Ororo can't hold it forever!"
Nightcrawler blinked ahead, scouting, reappearing with frantic shouts. "This way! Rock is thinner here!"
The ground thundered behind them as the lava pressed closer. Storm dropped to one knee, nearly spent. Cyclops wheeled around, blasting open a last barrier. "Push! Everyone push through!"
The wall exploded outward, and morning light stabbed into their eyes.
They stumbled out onto snow and rock, gasping like men reborn.
"Air!" Banshee collapsed to his knees, arms wide. "Sweet blessed air!"
Storm collapsed too, panting, her power drained to embers. Thunderbird steadied her, grim-faced. "You nearly killed yourself in there."
"I would have... if it meant saving you." She smiled weakly.
Then-shadows swept across them.
A piercing screech split the sky.
Cyclops' head snapped upward, visor gleaming. "What the hell now-"
Pterosaurs. Dozens. Their wings blotted the morning sun, their claws sharp as scythes. One dove, shrieking, its talons raking the air.
It hit Banshee. Its claws clamped around his torso, crushing his scream before he could unleash it. He flailed, voice strangled, carried skyward.
Storm and Sunfire tried to take off, but their power was running on fumes. They barely kept aloft.
Logan's lips peeled back in a feral grin. "Fastball Special, tin man!"
Colossus didn't hesitate. He grabbed Wolverine by the scruff, spun, and hurled him skyward with all his iron might.
Logan soared, claws bared, straight into the gut of the pterosaur holding Banshee. His blades ripped through its hide, hot blood spraying across the wind. The beast screeched, flailed, and collapsed in midair.
Logan and the corpse plummeted.
"Gotcha!" Storm gasped, straining her last power to slow the fall with a cushion of wind. Logan and Banshee hit the ground hard but alive, the pterosaur carcass crashing beside them.
Logan rolled to his feet, blood on his claws, his grin sharp and savage. "That's how we do it in the wild."
Cyclops stormed toward him, visor flaring red. "You could've killed him, Logan!"
"Could've. Didn't," Logan snapped back. "You're welcome."
Before Cyclops could retort, Storm lifted her head weakly and pointed. "Look. There."
On the horizon, nestled between jagged cliffs, smoke rose. A village. Civilization.
Relief spread through the team like wildfire.
"Move out," Cyclops said, his voice iron again. "We've lost too much time already."
The X-Men trudged toward the smoke, shadows of winged predators circling high above them still.