Chapter 36: Chapter 36: Mutant Pitstop
Sixteen hours had passed by in a blur following Bronte's run in with Agent Coulson and his unit of SHIELD Operatives. A brief encounter under sun and sniper scope. A brief encounter filled with illumination. Sure, they were a government agency with enough firepower to probably level the earth, but that firepower didn't seem to be aimed at them. They were part of a good faithed deal between the agency on behalf of the US and Wakanda. A place hidden deep within the heart of Africa.
Then again, Bronte was no idiot. No agency got as far along as SHIELD without cutting every corner available until their world was made of intersecting circles. SHIELD wasn't a taxi service in the same way Bronte wasn't a pacifist. And that fact was brought to the forefront of his brain when he returned to the safehouse with his siblings to talk it all over.
He was glad he had them in those moments. He'd only been thrown into this life for three years. The rest of them had been fighting their whole lives-- made for it in a very literal sense. Laura and Gabbie were trained to be the deadliest assassins in the world at the introduction of a single trigger scent. Daken's life much like Wolverine's was controlled by Romulus from a young age. Daken never spoke about it much, but Bronte understood. He was once meant to be the successor Romulus searched for. Raze was a mystery wrapped in supernatural phenomena.... made for murder and hardened by battle nonetheless.
If Bronte's thinking ever got too pedestrian, they brought him back to reality-- the battlefield. He was thankful for it in ways he probably wouldn't ever be able to describe to them. So all he could do was what he always did, join them in their cause. A cause that was now his own as well, and fight. After meeting a Goddess as old as time and speaking with the spectral form of mutant royalty claiming to be his mother, he felt the fight led them to Wakanda.
Despite what his more sensible siblings thought of SHIELD, they obliged-- if not hesitantly.
And that's how they found themselves in their current predicament. Inside a flying metal cage loud enough to burst their eardrums-- with the headphones on. They called it a Quinjet. Laura said when she was younger, seeing them meant Avengers inbound. Not this time.
Bronte stood behind the cockpit, glaring out at the night sky from the driver's seat. His siblings waited patiently behind him seated on the metal benches. As per usual, he seemed most approachable out of his siblings. Even with his recent transformation. Maybe they could sense he had the least number of brutal killings under his belt. Whatever it was, it was the current reason Agent. Coulson stood beside him, attempting to make conversation.
"So, Mr. Connors..." Agent. Coulson started as he adjusted the buttons on his stale black suit.
"How are you so painfully awkward, bro?" Bronte thought while he took his eyes off the cloudless sky ahead to face him.
"Do you know anything about Wakanda?"
"Not a damn thing." Laura told him not to admit any weaknesses to SHIELD, she said they'd put it in a database and find a way to fire it out of a gun. So, Bronte covered his bases, "But I have a direct line to the Queen. I'll learn when it's time to get busy, you know?"
Agent. Coulson nodded warily, ".....Is that like a phoneline?.... some secret Wakandan instagram page?"
"Sure." Bronte continued looking out the window at the front of the Quinjet while the pilots tried to hide their discomfort. Unfortunately, he could smell the growing body odor emanating from their perspiring armpits. The only time he didn't feel human was when he was around other humans.
"Well, I can tell you this. Going there is bound to keep you safe from Romulus. If there was ever a place to be protected from him and his, it's there. Then again, you all haven't been strictly running. So, if it's a fight you're interested in, that's the place." Agent. Coulson commented.
"Why is that?" Bronte questioned casually as he flicked his fingers to the beat of the jet engines on each side of the Quinjet. Each time his fingers passed each other his newest set of retractable metal claws caused sparks in the darkness.
"Well, the bulk of that answer is something we're still wishing to fully understand. Wakanda is ahead of the rest of the world by hundreds of miles. Always has been. Resources, funding, technology, curriculum, everything. And that was before Storm found her place there. She's quite literally a Goddess to them from what I've heard." Agent. Coulson explained, he almost sounded excited at the mention of her name.
Agent. Coulson stared at Bronte, "Man..... I've met some big names. But I've never been so close to royalty--"
"Get off your knees, AGENT. Brontosaur is a soundcloud artist before he's a Warrior Prince of Wakanda!" Raze commented before bursting out into hysterical laughter at the back of the plane.
Without looking Bronte raised a middle finger to Raze.
Agent. Coulson didn't flinch and instead shook his head, "Just taking in the moment."
"Speaking of moments..." He started, seemingly unfazed by Raze's previous comment, "I distinctly remember you looking..... well, smaller."
So, he tried painting pictures of grandeur, appealing to bloodlust, and now flattery. That was if he had an angle as Laura said. Even now she watched them. He could feel it.
"I-- along with the rest of the world, don't know much about Mutantkind, but I do know sometimes you can go through a second Mutant-- or evolution of the first. Like winning the lottery twice.."
Bronte raised an eyebrow at Agent. Coulson.
"....IF winning the lottery put your life in eternal turmoil and discrimination of course."
Bronte nodded.
"Is that the case for you? Or did you just find some ancient bodybuilding secret hidden in the Canadian wilderness?"
"Yea." Bronte replied to Agent. Coulson's surprise, "Wendigo meat."
Just ridiculous enough to leave him questioning if it was true or not.
"Well..... you know who else went through a secondary Mutation of sorts."
Someone like Agent. Coulson wouldn't go out of their way to hand over information. Especially not to people who'd been running from them for three years. There was definitely an angle.
"Who?" Bronte questioned.
"You fought him three years ago. He knew your father since childhood-- they even went to war together. Victor Creed, more often than not he went by his codename, Sabertooth."
A loud boom of thunder shook the Quinjet as Bronte's jaw clenched.
He no longer cared about the angle. He was pissed off.
"Did you ever run into him again since then? He did some serious damage to the X-Men in search of you guys after all."
Before he could say anything in reply to Agent. Coulson, a hand grabbed his forearm.
He looked over and found Laura staring at him. She wore a leather jacket and ripped pants, her usual attire. "Cálmate, go take a seat, hermano."
Bronte took a deep breath and walked off to sit with his siblings.
As he walked away, he could hear Agent. Coulson over the sound of the Quinjet engines.
"Long time no see, Laura. I'm sure Cap would want to check in on you if he wasn't offworld."
Whatever was said after was interrupted by the sound of howls from below. But they weren't normal. In the same way human words wouldn't really feel like human words if a lion spoke them. The howls came from something they shouldn't have. They came from heavy chests and hollow insides. They rocketed towards the sky like inverse lightning.
Bronte and his siblings were on their feet in a flash.
Agent. Coulson's hand hovered over his waistline as Raze began to pace at the back of the Quinjet.
"OHHhhohohoh! Suddenly I feel like dancing!"
"What's the matter?"
The Co-Pilot suddenly turned as their control center began beeping repeatedly, feeding them new and urgent information in excess.
"Agent. Coulson, we've got sightings of multiple unidentified lifeforms North of Queens. Police reports stemming up from Canada's border show they've been on the move for days."
"We're in New York." Bronte commented. But most importantly, "It's the Lupines. That's got to be the last batch."
"Last batch?" Agent. Coulson questioned while looking between Bronte's siblings and the Pilots.
Bronte got up from the bench and shrugged off his jacket, leaving himself in an undersized black t-shirt and cargo pants. "You said it yourself, we haven't been just running. Now open this metal box before we break it."
"We can gun them down from here with minimal collateral damage." One of the pilots said.
"Aye!" Bronte yelled over the sounds of the Quinjet as his adrenaline began to pulse through his limbs.
Agent. Coulson looked to the back of the Jet. Bronte stood with his siblings, claws extended and eyes reflecting the lights inside like animals.
"Let us out. Scoop us back up when it's over. We need to go get even."
Agent. Coulson sighed and grabbed hold off the bars lining the ceiling above him. "Open the hatch."
The back of the Quinjet screeched open, allowing the heavy winds of the oncoming storm to spill inside wildly.
"Keep it quick and efficient. Bronte, no crazy elements, there's people everywhere. We get in and get out." Laura commanded.
Raze mocked the Lupines howls as he sprouted bat wings and grabbed hold of Gabbie and Laura. "ThANkS fOR the PITstOP CouLSON! mY ASss waS soRE ANyWAY HAHAHAH!!"
He jumped out of the plane with his sisters held in his arms.
Daken jumped out alone after.
Bronte walked over to the pilots, "I know y'all got a stereo in here...."
Few seconds later and he was flying out of the plane, descending on Queens New York with Mob Deep blasting from the Quinjet behind him. It felt fitting to hear the queensbridge murderers' anthem for his first time back in Queens in three years.
Who knew, maybe he'd see some familiar faces.
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