"Oh, now that's a nice surprise."
Fenris put away his phone with a grin. All of a sudden, Nick Fury did not seem nearly as annoying as he had before.
"No, wait. Why hasn't the Professor acted yet?"
Fenris looked up into the distance. In five minutes at most, those soldiers would break through the woods and storm the school.
They were already well within Professor X's range. By all logic, they should have been under his control by now. So why were they still advancing steadily?
The school alarm had already started blaring.
For some reason, a strange feeling suddenly rose in Fenris's chest.
"No. I need to check."
He frowned instinctively. With one step, his whole body turned into an afterimage and shot into the school.
Empty. Empty. Empty.
Almost every room was vacant, which meant Logan had already succeeded in moving the students into the tunnel just moments earlier.
Fenris moved quickly down the corridor. At the far end, outside Professor X's office, Scott was standing there in silent guard.
"Fenris?"
Scott seemed surprised to see him here at a time like this. "Weren't you..."
"I wasn't what?"
Fenris wrinkled his nose and shot back the question. "Where's the Professor? Stryker's men are about to hit the school. Why hasn't he made a move yet?"
As he spoke, his ear twitched.
Inside the office, everything was silent.
"Fenris, something's off with you. Why are you so aggressive today?"
Scott shifted two steps sideways and blocked the door. "Besides, don't you trust the Professor's power? They're still far away. Wouldn't it be better to let them get closer and take them all at once?"
"..."
Fenris's gaze stayed on Scott's face for the briefest instant.
Then, in the next moment, he vanished directly from Scott's sight.
Bang!
Scott had no time to react at all. He only felt an overwhelming force explode into his stomach, driving him to his knees.
A violent wave of dizziness rushed into his head. An icy hand had already clamped down around his skull.
With a sharp crack, the ruby quartz visor on Scott's face was crushed effortlessly.
"Fenris, what the hell is wrong with you?"
The sudden attack turned Scott pale. His eyes were squeezed shut, but he still reached frantically around himself, groping for his spare glasses.
"Drop the act. Scott doesn't smell like you."
Boom!
Dragging Scott along with him, Fenris kicked out without the slightest hesitation. The heavy solid wood office doors exploded into splinters across the floor.
The scene inside the office was instantly laid bare.
An old man with white hair stood there calmly, a dark red helmet on his head. Across from him, Professor X was slumped sideways in his wheelchair, unconscious.
Against Magneto wearing that helmet, Professor X had almost no way to resist.
The real Scott was bound tightly in the corner of the office, and his visor lay quietly on the floor not far away.
"Help me... Erik..."
Mystique had already returned to her normal form. In Fenris's grip, she struggled to turn her eyes toward Magneto and rasped out a plea for help.
"Child, I have to say, you really are remarkably sharp. And stronger than last time."
"Azazel, take us out."
Magneto glanced at Mystique struggling in Fenris's hand, his face expressionless. There was not the slightest ripple in his reaction to Raven's plea.
With one casual lift of his hand, the Professor and his wheelchair rose into the air.
The moment Magneto finished speaking, red smoke enveloped both him and Professor X.
"No..."
Fenris instinctively pushed off the floor, trying to do what he had done before - crash into the red smoke and follow Azazel through the teleport.
But for some reason, his movement hesitated for a fraction of a second.
In that instant, Magneto and Professor X dissolved into smoke and vanished from the office.
"Why didn't you follow?"
Fenris loosened his grip, and Mystique slipped free at once. She stared at him in confusion.
She knew he was capable of doing that.
"And leave you to deal with the soldiers outside?"
Fenris gave Mystique a sidelong glance.
This woman had already gone down at his hands once. And still she had not learned.
"Go. I'm not interested in killing you."
As he spoke, Fenris casually bent down, picked up Scott's visor from the floor, and walked over to the corner to put it back on him.
"Hey, Scott. Wake up."
The sounds outside the school were getting closer and closer. Fenris sighed and finally just slapped him across the face.
"Wake up!"
"Huh?"
Scott jolted upright. The moment he realized Fenris was the one who had woken him, he hurriedly said, "Fenris, Magneto came and knocked both me and the Professor out..."
"I know."
Seeing Scott was finally alert again, Fenris pulled him to his feet. "I saw Magneto take the Professor away with my own eyes."
"Then what do we do now?"
At the thought of the heavily armed troops outside, Scott's face went white.
They had believed the Professor's presence made the school untouchable. None of them had expected Magneto to cut in halfway through.
Now Storm, the only one with true large-scale combat power, was gone. The only fighters left were Scott and Fenris.
And Logan was down in the tunnel with all the students. If they were found, then the consequences...
"Don't panic. The two of us are enough."
Fenris patted Scott on the shoulder. "Just make sure you keep yourself alive. Once this starts, I'm not going to have time to watch over you."
"Fenris, by yourself..."
Scott still hesitated, but when he saw the certainty in Fenris's eyes, he gritted his teeth, turned, and went to take up an ideal firing position.
"Come on..."
As the deliberately concealed footsteps of the soldiers grew clearer and clearer in his ears, Fenris drew in a deep breath and slowly walked to the front gate of the school.
He did not care what Magneto was off doing.
But there was a reactor chamber inside this school that belonged to him.
The roar of helicopter rotors grew louder and louder. Soon they were directly above the school. A brilliant searchlight snapped on and pinned Fenris's position with perfect precision.
"Scott, take the helicopter down first!"
"ROAAAR!"
A colossal bellow exploded like thunder, terrifying pressure sweeping outward as a wave of sound that shook the entire open wilderness beyond the school. Its echoes hammered through the forest again and again, lingering without end.
As soldiers poured out of the woods in dense waves like a flood, Fenris's body suddenly began to change beneath the blazing light.
His originally tall frame swelled violently. In the blink of an eye, he transformed into a hulking giant nearly thirteen feet tall, his body almost twice its former size.
Layer upon layer of sharp dorsal spikes grew from his thick tail, flickering with a dim, eerie blue glow.
"What the hell is that?"
"Some kind of dinosaur man?"
The horrifying sight caused the soldiers' advance to slow at once.
Bzzzt—
A thick red beam suddenly shot out from inside the school and struck the helicopter hanging above Fenris with perfect accuracy.
Under the devastating force of the optic blast, the helicopter was pierced clean through. A massive explosion followed. The searchlight died instantly, and the area was plunged into darkness.
"Don't stop! Reinforcements are right behind us!"
"Advance in formation! If you see a mutant, do not hesitate - fire immediately!"
The command was relayed cleanly to every soldier. Without hesitation, they stepped forward and continued their organized advance through the darkness.
Then, abruptly—
Hummm.
Hummm.
In that dead silence, where even the air itself seemed frozen solid, a series of low thrumming vibrations suddenly rose from all directions.
From the depths of the darkness came a low metallic shudder, like the sound of an ancient beast gathering a sigh of destruction deep in its throat.
Then a brilliant blue light flashed to life in the dark.
It began at the very tip of Fenris's tail, then raced along his dorsal spikes and up across his spine, until at last it outlined the savage silhouette of a monstrous giant.
(End of Chapter)
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