KRA-THOOOOOM!
KRA-KA-BOOM!
RRROOOOOOOOOAAAAARRRRR!
The first explosion hit the snow lodge with the subtlety of a meteor strike. One second, I was sitting on a moth-eaten plaid sofa, holding a chipped ceramic mug of lukewarm instant coffee, relishing the fact that we had a roof over our heads. The next second, the roof was gone, replaced by a blinding flash of white-hot plasma and the deafening roar of military-grade ordnance.
We hadn't even made it ten miles from the ghost town. We'd found this abandoned ski lodge tucked away in a valley of the Canadian Rockies, a place that smelled of cedar dust and old memories. It was supposed to be a pit stop. A place to catch our breath.
General Ross had other plans.
I was thrown backward as the front wall of the lodge simply ceased to exist, vaporized by a concentrated missile barrage. I hit the back wall hard enough to crack the timber, the ceramic mug shattering in my hand. Boiling coffee and sharp splinters of porcelain dug into my palm, but before my brain could even register the pain, the healing factor pushed the shards out, knitting the skin closed in a breath.
I rolled to my feet, the dust and smoke thick in my lungs. My ears were ringing, a high-pitched whine that threatened to drown out the world. But my feral senses cut through the static.
Smell: Cordite. Jet fuel. Ozone. Burning pine.
Hearing: The heavy, rhythmic thump-thump-thump of mechanized infantry. The whine of repulsor thrusters.
Sight: Through the gaping, flaming hole where the front door used to be, the night sky was lit up by the harsh, sterile glare of floodlights.
And then, the roar.
It didn't come from outside. It came from right beside me.
Bruce had been standing near the fireplace, shivering under his oversized parka. The blast wave had knocked him into the stone hearth. But he didn't stay down. And he didn't panic.
I watched as he transformed. In the movies, it's always a violent, agonizing tearing of flesh and clothing, a monster bursting out of a man's skin. This was different and here... It was kinda creepier.
Bruce's skin shifted from pale pink to a deep, bruising green. His muscles swelled, ripping the thick wool sweater and corduroy pants to shreds in a single heartbeat. His skeletal structure expanded, bones popping and grinding with the sound of snapping tree trunks. He didn't lose his mind; he didn't flail. He planted his massive, three-toed feet into the floorboards and grew into a nine-foot-tall titan of pure, unadulterated gamma rage.
But when he looked at me, his eyes weren't the mindless, milky white of a berserker. They were green. Deep, focused, and furious.
"They interrupted our coffee," I growled, my voice vibrating with the beast that was always scratching at the inside of my skull.
The Hulk let out a low, rumbling huff that sounded suspiciously like agreement. Then, he bent his knees and launched himself straight through the flaming wreckage of the lodge and out into the snow.
I didn't wait. I focused on the itch in my forearms.
SNIKT
Six unbreakable, lethal metal claws punched through my knuckles. The sound was clean. The pain was a brief, sharp reminder that I was alive. I kicked off the wall, launching myself out of the ruins right on the Hulk's heels.
We landed in a clearing that had been completely surrounded by Ross's forces.
Hovering a hundred feet in the air were three heavily armored gunships, their searchlights pinning us to the snow. On the ground, forming a deadly crescent moon around the lodge, were two dozen heavily armed infantrymen in specialized snow-camo tactical gear.
But the real problem was the mechs.
Six Hulkbusters. But these weren't the rusty, utilitarian models we'd trashed a day ago. These were sleek, terrifyingly modern machines. They were painted a dark, matte olive drab, standing fifteen feet tall, bristling with shoulder-mounted missile pods, rotary cannons, and oversized, electrified hydraulic fists.
"TARGETS ACQUIRED. WEAPONS FREE," an amplified voice boomed from the lead gunship.
"Let's roll," I muttered to myself.
The world erupted into a storm of lead and fire.
DATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDAT
The Hulk didn't dodge. He stood his ground, letting a hail of depleted uranium rounds bounce off his emerald skin like raindrops off a windshield. He let out a roar that physically rippled the air, a shockwave of sound that shattered the remaining windows of the lodge behind me.
A Hulkbuster charged him, its massive boots chewing up the permafrost. It swung a fist the size of a compact car, crackling with blue electricity.
Hulk caught it.
He just reached out and caught the fifteen-ton punch in the palm of his hand. The impact created a sonic boom that kicked up a wall of snow. The mech's thrusters whined, pushing forward, trying to break the Green King's grip.
Hulk grinned. It was a terrifying, feral expression. He twisted his wrist, applying torque that defied the laws of physics. The metal groaned, screeched, and then shattered. The entire right arm of the Hulkbuster was violently torn at the elbow. The pilot inside screamed as Hulk used the severed mechanical arm like a baseball bat, swinging it back around and batting the mech squarely in the chest plate. The fifteen-foot tank went flying backward, crashing through a stand of pine trees like a bowling ball through pins.
While the big guy handled the heavy machinery, I went to work on the infantry.
A squad of five soldiers tried to flank us, laying down suppressing fire from high-caliber assault rifles.
I dropped to all fours, letting the bullets chew the air where my chest had just been. My Level 3 physique meant I was as fast as peak Wolverine in the comics without his adamantium, meaning faster than the human eye could see and it was worse in the dark. I scrambled across the snow, using the uneven terrain for cover.
I vaulted over a snowbank, landing directly in the center of the squad.
Time seemed to slow down. I could see the wide, terrified eyes of a soldier behind his tactical goggles. He was just a kid. Probably early twenties. Doing his job. Following orders.
Yesterday, looking at those wooden crosses, I swore I wouldn't just be a weapon. I swore I'd be the one holding the leash.
Don't kill them, I whispered. Just stop them.
I twisted my body mid-air. Instead of burying my claws into the kid's throat, I slashed downward, slicing cleanly through the barrel of his rifle. The metal parted like warm butter. Before he could react to holding half a gun, I spun on my heel, bringing my right fist up in a brutal, claw-retracted uppercut that caught him under the jaw. He went out like a light, dropping into the snow.
Two others swung their weapons toward me.
SNIKT.
I extended the claws on my left hand, sweeping them in a wide arc. I didn't aim for flesh. I aimed for gear. The adamantium sheared through their Kevlar vests, severing the straps of their tactical webbing and slicing their weapon slings. Their guns clattered to the ground.
I moved like a shadow, a blur of leather and metal. A sweep of the leg dropped the third man. A heavy elbow to the temple put the fourth to sleep. The fifth tried to pull a sidearm. I stepped into his guard, grabbed his wrist with my left hand, and popped a single claw on my right, resting the razor-sharp tip a millimeter from his pupil.
"Drop it, bub," I rumbled, my breath pluming in the freezing air.
He dropped the gun. He dropped his hands. He was shaking so hard his teeth clicked.
"Sleep," I said, and slammed my forehead into the bridge of his nose. He crumpled.
Five men down. Zero fatalities.
I didn't have time to celebrate my moral victory. The ground shook beneath my feet as a shadow blotted out the floodlights.
I looked up just in time to see a Hulkbuster dropping from the sky, its thrusters firing in reverse to slow its descent. It landed right on top of me.
I threw my arms up in an X over my head.
CRUNCH.
The sheer weight of the mech stepping on me drove me straight down into the frozen earth. The impact was catastrophic. Even with an unbreakable skeleton, the meat wrapped around it has limits. I felt ribs shift under the pressure, the adamantium lacing holding them in place but the surrounding tissue turning to bruised mush. My lungs emptied in a violent gasp as I was pinned beneath a foot the size of a dining room table.
"MUTANT THREAT NEUTRALIZED. FOCUSING ON GAMMA TARGET," the pilot's voice buzzed through the external speakers.
"Neutralized?" I managed to wheeze, tasting copper in the back of my throat. "You gotta be kidding me."
The pain was blinding, a white-hot flare of agony that threatened to shut down my nervous system. My recovery factor kicked into high gear. The bruised meat knit together. The blood flow stabilized. The beast inside, the feral animal that lived in me woke up screaming.
I dug my claws into the underside of the massive metal boot. I didn't try to lift it. I'm strong, but I'm not 'bench-press-a-mech' strong. Instead, I started cutting.
The adamantium sliced through the depleted uranium sole, carving through the hydraulic lines and sensory arrays embedded in the foot. Thick, black synthetic oil poured over my face.
"WARNING. INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. RIGHT STABILIZER FAILING!" the mech's computer blared.
The pressure lessened as the machine lost its balance. I used the opening to scramble out from under the boot, covered in dirt, snow, and mechanical fluid. I was breathing hard, my chest burning, but I was up.
I looked across the battlefield.
Hulk was putting on a clinic. He was surrounded by three Hulkbusters. They were firing missiles, repulsor blasts, and trying to grapple him. It was like watching three toddlers try to wrestle a silverback gorilla. Hulk caught a missile mid-air, crushed it in his fist before it could detonate, and then grabbed one mech by the ankle, swinging the entire fifteen-ton machine around like a flail to bash it into the other two. Sparks, shrapnel, and screaming metal filled the air.
But the gunships above were adapting. They were pivoting, locking their primary cannons onto the big guy. Heavy artillery that could level a city block.
"Bruce!" I yelled, my voice cutting through the din. "The birds! We gotta ground the birds!"
Hulk tossed the broken mech aside. He looked up at the hovering gunships, then looked at me. A spark of terrifying intelligence lit up his green eyes. He remembered. The fused soul, the shared memories. He knew exactly what I was thinking.
He took three massive, bounding strides toward me. The ground shuddered with every step.
Liam, the comic fan, felt a surge of pure, fanboy euphoria cut through the adrenaline and the pain. Oh my god. We're doing it.
Logan, the tactician, just locked his joints and prepared for the G-force.
Hulk reached down and scooped me up in his massive, calloused hand. I retracted my claws so I wouldn't slice his palm. He held me like a baseball, his fingers wrapping around my waist. He reared back, his massive latissimus muscles bulging, the veins in his arm glowing with faint, radioactive green light.
"Go fast," Hulk rumbled, his voice shaking my internal organs.
"Throw me, big guy!" I roared.
The Fastball Special.
Hulk whipped his arm forward with the force of a localized hurricane. The acceleration was instantaneous and brutal. My vision tunneled. The air pressure pushed the skin of my face back. I was a 300-pound bullet made of unbreakable metal, tearing through the sky at Mach 2.
I aimed my body perfectly. The lead gunship was directly in my path.
GRAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
CRASH!!!!
BOOOM!!!!
I popped the claws just as I hit the reinforced cockpit glass. The impact was deafening. I didn't just break the glass; I shattered the entire front chassis of the gunship. I flew straight into the cockpit, rolling across the navigation console, tearing out wires and control panels with my claws. The two pilots scrambled out of their seats, screaming in terror.
"Bail out!" I yelled at them, grabbing the control yoke with both hands and ripping it completely out of the dashboard.
The gunship immediately pitched sideways, alarms blaring. The pilots didn't hesitate; they hit their emergency eject buttons, rocketing out of the roof and into the night sky, their parachutes deploying a second later.
The ship was going down. Fast.
I sprinted toward the open rear cargo ramp. I dove out into the freezing air just as the gunship collided with the mountainside, exploding into a massive, blossoming fireball that lit up the entire valley in shades of orange and red.
The concussive wave hit me mid-air, tossing me like a ragdoll. I plummeted toward the earth, the wind roaring in my ears. I twisted, trying to spot a soft landing.
Below me, the remaining two gunships, seeing their leader vaporized, banked hard. They were retreating. The surviving mechs on the ground, missing limbs and leaking fluid, were already beginning to fire their reverse thrusters, dragging themselves back toward the tree line to escape.
The ground rushed up to meet me.
I hit a deep snowdrift on the side of a steep incline, sliding and tumbling for fifty yards before finally coming to a stop at the base of a massive pine tree.
I lay there for a moment, staring up at the smoke-filled sky. My body was in so much pain. Bruised ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a ringing in my ears that wouldn't quit. I popped my shoulder back into place with a wet crunch, biting back a groan.
I pushed myself up, shaking the snow off my leather jacket. I trudged back toward the clearing.
The battlefield was a disaster zone. Craters scarred the earth. The lodge was completely gone, reduced to a foundation of smoking ash. Twisted metal and burning fuel littered the snow.
In the center of it all stood the Hulk.
He was breathing heavily, the steam rising off his green skin in thick clouds. He looked around at the destruction, and for a second, I saw that familiar flash of sorrow in his eyes. The same sorrow we'd felt at the wooden crosses.
I walked up to him, popping a cigar between my teeth. I didn't have a lighter, but the burning wreckage of a mech was close enough. I leaned over, lighting the tip off a piece of red-hot slag.
"You good, big guy?" I asked, puffing a thick cloud of smoke.
Hulk looked down at me. He didn't roar. He didn't smash anything. He just took a deep, shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and let go.
The transformation reversed. The massive green muscles melted away, the bone structure shrinking, the mass dissipating into thin air. Within seconds, Bruce Banner was kneeling in the snow, gasping for air, completely naked and shivering violently.
I took off my leather jacket—the one I'd scavenged yesterday—and threw it over his shoulders.
"He... he listened," Bruce stammered, pulling the leather tight around his frail frame. "I told him to spare the soldiers... to just break the machines. And he listened, Logan. He didn't kill them."
I looked over at the tree line. The infantrymen I'd knocked out were starting to groan and stir. None of them were dead. We had fought a war, and we hadn't crossed the line.
Liam's heart beat a little steadier inside Logan's chest. We were doing it. We were breaking the cycle.
"You did good, doc," I said, offering a small, tired grin. "Both of you."
Bruce looked up at me, a genuine smile breaking through the exhaustion on his face. "Fastball Special?" he asked, his teeth chattering.
"Don't get used to it," I grunted, turning to look at the southern horizon.
We had lost our shelter. We had lost our quiet night. General Ross knew exactly where we were, and he would keep sending men, metal, and fire until he had us in chains or in body bags. The world was gonna get much worse from here, sentinels, Anti-mutant groups, and worse.
"Come on, Bruce," I said, taking a drag of the cigar and leading the way into the dark timber of the forest. "Let's get moving. Westchester is a long walk, and I have a feeling the welcoming committee is only gonna get louder."
I'd like to see what else they got in store for us. Me and the Hulk, needed a good challenge so we wouldn't get bored.
And I was just getting warmed up.