Chapter 52: Fragment
Kelvin
Iceberg Lounge
Hours before the events that transpired in the tunnels of Manhattan.
Jeremy and Anne had left. Watching her go with the heir caused conflicting emotions to surface. Feelings he had hoped to stamp down on, or at least hide from Jeremy.
He and Anne had a tumultuous relationship. Others might think him her lackey, but in actuality, he had adored the blonde teenager's resilience.
Kelvin had counted to three before he injected the serum into his forearm, hoping the distraction would calm his emotions.
Kelvin hadn't expected much. Like most, he knew about Captain America. Like most, he knew he had been billed as a supersoldier, a man designed to slap the Nazi propaganda machine pertaining to the perfect Aryan race the Axis assured they had in abundance.
Immediately, he began to sweat profusely. He lost his footing; soon after, his body contorted unnaturally. He cried out in pain as his skin cracked.
"Argh." He growled. His fingernails splintered before pushing out from the nailbed in a torturous fashion. The floorboards creaked underneath him as his weight rapidly expanded, and steam rose from him as the liquid in his body heated.
"Help." He gasped, crawling his way out of his apartment.
"Jeremy.." He begged.
Was he being killed? He had apologized for the bullying. He regretted taking the injections. Seeing the powers and abilities he had witnessed last night made him want to experience those things, too.
He rattled the doorknob. Locked. He beat on the door, his blows rattling the frame and splintering the door.
"No." He pushed, plying his weight against the door as it exploded in splinters, and lunged inside.
"Jeremy." He called again.
The Russian mutant had rushed from the shower, heating the ruckus, fur crawling up his large body, expecting a battle.
"Boy!" His voice garbled as his vocal cords shifted from human to bear.
Kelvin ignored him or never saw him. His eyes had been gouged out. Ursa had seen a lot in his life, especially in the last ten years as a state soldier under the threat of death.
He halted his shift and ran toward the boy. He understood what the boy wanted and helped drag him. Disgusted by his sloshing skin, Ursa heaved him into one of the shattered chairs.
Kelvin, wracked with so much pain, hadn't realized Ursa had assisted him. He, too, had remembered the shattered round table had strange effects on those who sat in the chairs.
Ursa Major had no idea what to do, but he watched on. Maybe the boy had a family. He should stand by and listen for any last words.
In the back of his mind, where he places problems for another time, he is mad at the other boy for giving the teen dangerous experimental items. It might not be assumed, but bears had hearing comparable if not more extraordinary than canines, and his mutation had afforded him even greater senses, so he was up to speed on what accord.
"Comrade, be at ease." The prominent Russian said, moving into the room.
Kelvin's head banged against the roundtable, his hands slammed down, shuttering the table but barely marring the archaic magical wood.
Ursa Major acted, his older brother mentality overwhelming his wait-and-see approach. He had a sister, and he wouldn't want her to feel so alone. He reached out to restrain the boy from causing more harm. He roared out like a wounded animal as his palms blistered from touching the teen.
Kelvin had placed his palm directly on a run that glowed from his blood. A light blossomed around him, and he knew no more as blackness took him, but not before a memory not his entered his brain.
His helmeted head landed on the table, and before he lost consciousness, Ursa Major had moved closer, his wounds already healing.
"How do I get him into bed with this archaic armor on." Grumbled the Russian mutant. But glad that the boy wasn't screaming bloody murder any longer.
He had known the other kid had strange abilities, but watching the transformation and armor appearing on what he was assured was a dying teen, he was amazed.
Underground Station
'Oh.' He said internally.
'I didn't expect the changed arm to be more sensitive.' The decibels that were unleashed from her throat had nearly shattered his eardrums.
Her cries grew quiet as he placed the Goa'uld healing device above her missing arm. The energy sphere hovered over the missing limb. Alfred had told him what to do. He had to burn it at the stump to stop whatever Masque's polymorphic abilities did.
He had sensed her before she acted, but it was over. He had won at their games. The terrain boas drones hidden on the ceiling dropped, landing atop the Morlock in a spider-like fashion.
He shuddered. Daniel Kilgore hated spiders, and his spine tingled at the spider-like appearance.
"You can't put me down, bastard." Marrow roared cables with tensile strength beyond what her paltry enhanced strength could put out enraptured her.
His cowl slid back. He was still under the Jason Todd Persona. Her assessment was based on his holding back; she didn't know that he hadn't used his ectokinesis or transformation in the fight.
"Your healing factor is too important to your people to kill you."
Marrow wasn't stupid. She caught the implications in his tone. She renewed her attempts to escape, bone protrusions breaking against the cables uselessly.
Sunder hadn't died. He was pretty banged up. He now had an apparatus on his face that rendered him unconscious. His terrain boas drones swarmed the underground tunnel, bringing supplies and foodstuff.
Caliban had also been found in an unconscious state. He had a vague feeling that a battle was fought, and he had come out the victor. The moment he laid eyes on the man, he knew whatever gave off the signal that brought him here was gone.
Cole had won. He made Masque runoff, meaning his leadership claim was void. From a brief survey of the mutants, his people still weren't accepting him or Callisto.
'Tag the outliers.' He ordered Alfred. If they wanted to leave, he wouldn't stop them. One Morlock had caught his attention immediately. Leech. A mutant with power-dampening abilities.
'Potential attack imminent.' Alfred warned, detecting the massing of what he assumed was a last-ditch effort to defeat him.
Cole hadn't been idle; he presumed they assumed him a soft target after his battles, but he hadn't pushed himself to his limits.
He was mapping the immense tunnel system underneath Manhattan. Marauders could appear and disappear, almost like they had a base underground connected to the vast network of abandoned tunnels.
Leech had stared at him, at the head of the massing group, Annalee, obviously directing the child.
"Analyze the effect of his power-dampering abilities." He ordered.
The green-skinned Leech's early history is unknown. At least Cole didn't recall it ever being explained. He was a rare mutant whose physical mutation became apparent before reaching puberty.
Leech was found by the Morlocks and raised as part of their underground community in The Alley. Leech was kept near the Drain Dwellers Morlock group after Annalee lost her children to attackers.
Annalee was a projecting empath, and her emotional instability would affect her neighbors if Leech weren't around to cancel her powers.
Leech, a kid barely seven, from his analysis, the mutant had held the woman's hand, a dirty Teddy Bear clutched into his other hand.
The group appeared before him. Annalee had a condescending smile on her face.
"Young ma-" He closed his eyes. He ignored the matron as he ran a check from all his abilities.
"Frightening." He said breathlessly. Leech power had so much potential.
'If he can be trained, and his ability to damper almost everyone's powers, including magic, he could be a threat to anyone.' Cole thought.
He opened his eyes and stood from his perch. The bat had remained, hidden above on a perch.
He ignored The Morlocks that assembled before him with pipes and tire irons and all manner of weaponized trash.
He took a step, his armor straining him somewhat. His body's unique physiology was still beyond human and was unaffected by Leech's ability. But everything else was a void.
He squatted before the young Morlock and summoned a lollipop into his hand. The young mutant eyes enlarged. He heard gasps and scuttling of feet. He chuckled, cowards. He was hoping to fight in a weakened state for a chance.
Annalee attempted to talk again, but a gun appeared in his hands, and he pushed himself up from a crouch, much slower, and pressed the gun under her chin.
"Another word from you, and I'll end your suffering." He threatened. Her children were maybe dead, he didn't know, but that's not a reason to be insufferable.
He felt a hand pulled at His free hand, and he looked down; Leech was shaking his head, tears welling in his large eyes.
"Don't kill Leech, grandma." The child pleaded.
He stared down at him. Alfred had suggested an example would suffice. Leech was dangerous to anyone with supernatural abilities but not necessarily external forces; for instance, his power ring wouldn't be affected.
'He's a child. Abandoned by his real parents once his mutation manifested.' Thought Cole.
In the worst case, he shifted into a red lantern and killed the kid and the group. Before looking back into the stern eyes of a woman, he spoke to the child.
Unfortunately for them, his shadow still was unleashed. He didn't know when he decided to call it that, but it felt like a fitting description as the bat toyed around with it when it formed.
"Stop your power!" He ordered, his voice leaving no room for argument.
He unsummoned the gun, but he stared into her eyes before speaking. "You will be under harsher conditions than everyone.
Annalee and Leech had departed to the ATC headquarters. With Russian technology and now Leech, he can begin researching power-dampering tech.
He was having a strenuous conversation with Alfred. But the system notification needed his attention for now; before he could allow the many prompts to submerge him, his phone thrummed in his pocket.
"Broker?" He said, opening the email. He stood so fast he knocked the boas he was using as a chair over.
He pressed the Combadge on his chest. "Rand Industries heir has been located. He dared not even use his Wayne tech to relay such a message.
A voice that he barely recognized answered first.