Chapter 158

Lumos

Our search for the Nephilim brought us to Antarctica, of all places. There'd been a tremendous energy spike near the sensors we'd installed close to the Array site.

"He was here," Aloya said, rubbing the snow with a notable frown. "He came from that direction." She pointed at the horizon, where we spotted the smoky remains of a fire. It was so faint that someone without enhanced eyes would've caught it. "But there's something else here poisoning the air."

Radiation.

I recognized the familiar sting from when I meditated under the sun to gather light in my earlier days.

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock," Crossbones snorted, hefting his gun with unnatural ease. He was still getting used to the strength of the modified Serum Domina gifted to him and his companion. It was based on the unstable version the missing professor made. Corvus's blood essence loosely held it together, an essence any competent Cambion could easily pluck whenever it suited them.

"I could've told you that. Remind me again why we needed babysitters after the serum your sister gave us?" he said, nudging the quiet mercenary beside him.

Her name was Taskmaster, and she'd been silent since the first moment I met her, even long after the serum had restored her mental faculties and healed her body. Her mind remained tethered to her father, however. I was undecided on what to do about her. Release her from her mental shackles or enslave her will to mine.

Either way, I reckoned she would be of much use, even after being considerably enhanced.

"How dare you!" the fire knight escorting me demanded in a raspy voice, and his partner the Ice knight reached for his blade.

My right hand, Van, summoned his Devil arm, a pair of daggers oozing Space energy, ready to gut the mercenary, who still looked so sure of himself.

All that changed when I raised a finger, arresting everybody's movement. He flexed his enhanced muscles, but he remained rooted in place. The fear rolled off him in waves, his mind struggling to reconcile my diminutive size and my impressive strength.

"Val, take the mercenaries with you and check the fire," I commanded.

"Yes, my prince," Val bowed obediently and marched off. Task Master was quick to follow, but Crossbones hung back and looked at me like I was some sort of monstrosity. My eyes snapped to him, and he diverted his gaze, trudging behind Task Master into the snowy tundra.

I had half the mind to lobotomize him right there, but I didn't lash out in anger.

That was more lsha's thing.

I turned to Aloya, who remained in the snow, eyes wide and white in concentration, still soaking in information from the world around her.

"There is Vibranium here," she said. "And something far more dangerous. And I'm not talking about the Nephilim."

"What do you sense Aloya," I narrowed my eyes.

“Abominations. Isha reported sensing them weeks prior to her interaction with the son of Sparda. It’s an interdimensional Invader.”

"The sorcerers must've sent the boy to investigate," I concurred.

"It appears so my prince," she said. "If they've staked their claim to Antarctica, building an array under their nose would prove challenging."

"I suppose it's a good thing that I insisted on joining the mission."

---

Dante

Fury spent the first ten minutes of the breakdown staring at me. The changes to my body were minimal this time, but they were still big enough for him to want to ask questions, but he knew better by now.

At best, I'd tell him I'd undergone another spontaneous strength spike, requiring him to reconfigure his countermeasures for the umpteenth time, and at worst, it's some strange demon thing I'd refuse to elaborate on and provide no context or explanation to.

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By the end of the debrief, Fury was twisted and bent out of shape.

"Jesus. H. Christ, can't I catch a fucking break," he said, pushing off his seat. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and gulped it down, then swallowed another full glass. "I'm going to need every one for this. The Wakandans, the mutant liberation front, the Thunderbolts."

"Thunderbolts?"

"That's what I'm calling the team," he said.

"Wouldn't have been my first pick, but hey, your team your name."

Fury narrowed his eyes at me, then continued. "Even with all that help, it won't be enough."

"You should also probably have Tony turnover whatever goody you've had him cooking up," I chimed in with an innocent smile, setting Fury on edge.

I rolled my eyes. "Come on, you're predictable. Of course, you'll have the most brilliant weapon's engineer in recorded history working on countermeasures against the demonic invasion."

"Still, Tony doesn't have anything powerful enough to kill a twelve-eyed alien squid fast enough to surprise even you," he said. "I have a feeling its durability will be just as impressive as its speed."

"At the very least," I grumbled.

"If only Jean Grey had fallen ill," Fury said with an undertone of disappointment at me of all things. In his opinion, I should've had better control over Jean. Apparently, he saw me as a handler. I chuckled at the thought. I couldn't handle shit. Jean did what she wanted, and I was just fortunate enough that she considered me a friend and partner.

"Well, what's done is done, and we have to make the best of a bad situation, and I think I might have a solution that might help us deal with this clusterfuck."

I proceeded to explain my theory about my purple fire. It'd burned the monster badly, bad enough that it ran away with its tail tucked between its legs and decimated its new family.

"And you just had this in your back pocket the entire time?" Fury asked.

"It's a nuclear option," I said. "You have your secret goodies, and I have mine. And it's every bit as dangerous as I'm making it out to be. No one caught in its blast radius will survive."

Fury frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"A bomb obviously," I said. "We have the most talented weapon's engineer since Howard Stark on retainer. I say we use him."

"You just gave me a speech about how dangerous this Fire is. You want to weaponize it?"

I shrugged. "It's either that or have a Lovecraftian Horror slinking about unchallenged. Besides, I thought you'd be happy. This way we can prep for Domina and the rest of the Cambions all at once. Naturally, I'll hang onto a few for safe keeping when it's all said and done. Never know when you'll need one."

Fury's lip twisted at my shameless power grab. "I'm not agreeing to anything concrete. We'll have to see the man himself."

Tony was at SHIELD’s cafeteria when we found him. I didn't bother feigning surprise when I saw him.

"Fancy seeing you here, Tony," I settled across from him, and he raised a brow at my casualness. "How goes your ultra secret armor research project?"

Tony looked at Fury, who sighed and nodded to the agents to clear out the cafeteria.

"No, he didn't tell me," I said. "And it's not that difficult to figure out. The Sentinel parts disappeared. Fury is looking for soldiers who can go toe-to-toe with demons, and we just stumbled upon a huge stockpile of exo-skeletons when we raided Klaue's place. It's not that hard to figure out."

"You've changed again. Definitely more relaxed than last time," Tony said, plucking an apple from his tray and chomping on it. "A bit too laisse faire for the leader of the most dangerous team in our little coalition."

"I could say the same thing about you," I said. "Brilliant, Billionaire, and oozing enough Tech to make Elon Musk jealous."

"He's the poor man's version of me," Tony smirked. "So, what are you after? Seeing as you two hate each other, you'd not have come together if it wasn't important."

Fury and I shared a look, but neither of us denied it.

"We need a bomb, Tony," Fury said.

"And you have tons in your armory," he said. "I'd argue way too much."

"You can never have too many bombs," I interjected with a smile. "But what we need is the bomb to end all bombs. I want you to make something that amplifies these." I produced a pair of angel and demon-charged bombs. They strummed with energy, catching Tony's eyes as he leaned in and stretched his hand. I offered them to him, and he looked down at them and then up at me.

"The wiring is not the best and C4 is a suboptimal choice, but all that is window dressing isn't it," he said. "What happens when they both go off?"

"A purple fire explosion exponentially greater than the sum of its parts," I said. "The fire is not nuclear if that's you’re worried about, but its…very thorough. Nothing I've hurt with that fire has survived."

Something clicked in Tony's head, and he glared at me. "So, that's why I was able to recover next to nothing from the head of the Sentinel. You torched it. Even the metal was unusable. So, who's the target of your monster bomb?"

"A Lovecraftian horror monster. It's faster, tougher, and more durable than anything we've ever seen. Since a mini-nuke or Hydrogen bomb is not on the table, I figured this was the next best thing."

Tony looked up at me, then down at the bombs in his hands, mind whirring. "I could retrofit something to work with some of the yield from our experimental missiles. Would you prefer remote detonation or something you can launch from the Quinjet."

I shared a look with Fury, but he was, apparently, leaving all of the planning up to me. "Half and half," I said. "Somebody fast enough can get them set in place before the Squid realizes what's going on, and if that fails, we could always bombard it from the sky with artillery."

"How much of these bombs do you want exactly?" Tony asked.

I had produced well over 300 bombs, so I emptied a quarter of my stockpile. "How many can you make?"

Tony and Fury gave me pointed looks.

"You've got to tell me how you do that," Tony said.