xXx
Natasha stealthily rolled over the edge of the roof and crouched in the shadow of the stair access. She lined up on the rippling distortion with her gun, then she breathed out as she squeezed the trigger.
The gun piffed, and something whipped through the intervening space and jabbed the mirage.
Natasha's breath drained as she saw two eyes flare in the rippling shadow.
She rolled backward and flipped over the edge of the roof, landing gracefully on the fire escape. Behind her, a peculiar flaring hiss resounded, and a bolt of energy lanced into the brickwork and blew it to pieces. She rolled with the explosive impact, clattering down the fire escape, dexterously twisting free and dropping into the alley.
As she rebounded from a dumpster and rolled, bolts rained down; the dumpster was blown in half, a chunk knocked out of the wall, a crater blasted just behind her as she sprinted with abandon and dove around the corner of the alley.
Hyabusa slung a kick at Logan's groin, and Logan twisted out of the way and sprang for the lithe teacher. As Hyabusa skillfully evaded him, Logan reversed and smacked an elbow into Hyabusa's face.
Outside, energy bolts whistled and spat down into the shattering booms of their explosions. Hybusa glanced aside, distracted, and Logan snatched him and slung him around and down, slamming on the mat hard. Then Logan was on his feet, hopping into his boots, sprinting through the front door. Hyabusa, groggy, managed to lever himself up to a sitting position.
"Dammit, girl, no use jumpin the gun," Logan muttered as he ran towards the explosions.
Natasha dove out of the alley and rolled to her feet. She glanced around, then she dashed towards the van with the surveillance equipment. A rippling shadow loomed on the roof, and a bolt of energy sizzled towards her.
Logan was sprinting as the bolt lashed down; the blast detonated on the sidewalk next to Natasha, flinging her into the air. A semi honked as it locked up the brakes, but she was tossed right in front of its grill—Logan leaped, slapped into her, and knocked her out of the way as the semi roared past with smoke pouring from its tires.
Rolling, he tried to cushion the battering as they went down a stairwell to an alley basement entrance. Afraid to look, he levered himself up off her. Dazed, Natasha blinked at him.
"You gonna be okay?" Logan demanded as he pried the peculiar gun from her grip.
"Fine," she managed. "No… gun has tracer… is bug… is not bullets…"
"You shot the hunter with a tracking device?" Logan blinked.
Natasha nodded. "Let… him go…"
"Not a chance," Logan growled. "Because now he's comin fer us. I mean right now. Stay put." He rocked back to his heels and rose, then he jogged up the stairs and cautiously peeked around the corner. Sirens wailed in the near distance. Logan spun around and ran to a fire escape, jumping to kick off the brick wall and launch himself just high enough to catch the bottom rung of the hanging ladder.
He scrabbled and dashed up the fire escape, rolling over the edge of the roof and planting his feet on the roofing. Looking across the too-narrow alley, he saw the distortion motionlessly watching him.
"Enough with the lightning, bub," Logan growled. With a ringing slit, three long blades slid out of the back of each hand, pushed from their flesh sheathes in his forearms. He flexed, the adamantium of his claws burning with light as they reflected the sun at the distortion.
Logan squinted, sniffed. The distortion seemed… startled? He heard muted chirping, and the refractive camo began to twist away from the hunter in glittering waves. Logan's eyes widened.
The hunter was just over two meters tall. Logan no longer had any suspicion it was human. Solidly packed with muscle, the creature was tapping a long claw on a wrist greave control, shutting down the light shield. The hunter was draped in a strange tight mesh, overlaid by patchwork layered armor. His flesh was greasy, pale, and greenish brown mottled. A blank face mask hid his features, his hair hung down in long dredlocks interwoven with bits of metal. Logan had an uneasy feeling this creature was not from Earth.
The hunter pointed his mask at Logan, and Logan saw the three laser sights built into the mask. They oriented on Logan, and a device that looked something like a hair dryer mounted on his shoulder plate pivoted to line up on the short man.
"Fight me," Logan growled, every fiber of his being primed to dive out of the way if it fired on him.
The hunter regarded him, then tapped on its greave again. The shoulder cannon twitched, then folded back. And the hunter squared off, rising to his full impressive height.
With a ringing impact, two peculiar blades shot down out of their housings on his forearm greave. The blades weren't quite crooked, but they were oddly shaped. Logan froze, shocked by the sound.
Those blades… no. Impossible.
They couldn't be adamantium.
xXx
The band wrapped it up with a wash of cymbal roll from Peter as the black and white police car rolled up into the driveway.
"This for you?" Mary Jane asked Peter with an arched eyebrow.
"No," he replied simply.
An officer approached, looking somehow crisp in his kevlar vest and pressed uniform in spite of the heat. "Excuse me," he said. "We've had some complaints about the noise from the neighbors. I'm afraid you're going to have to knock it off for the day."
"We were done anyway," Tandy nodded. "Thank you, officer. Have a good afternoon." She switched her keyboard off. The policeman nodded at her with a smile, then turned and headed back to his car.
As the squad car pulled out of the driveway, Tandy sighed. "I have some work to get to anyway. Good session, people," she added.
Mary Jane grinned at Peter. "So do we have to drag you out of the drum set, or will you come quietly?"
"That depends," Peter shot back. "You gonna read me my rights?"
"You don't get rights. You got married," Mary Jane teased with a grin.
"Okay, no arguing that," Peter played along as he hauled himself to his feet and stretched. "Damn, that felt good."
Mary Jane's cell phone warbled, and she dug it out of her purse. "Hey," she answered amicably. Then her eyes widened, and she turned to Peter. "It's for you," she said.
"Peter here," he answered as he took the phone.
"This is Natasha," the voice on the other end said. "Logan is fighting the hunter on the roof by the dojo. I'm getting my weapons together. Hurry!"
"On my way," Peter said quickly. He hung up the phone and tossed it to Mary Jane. Then he turned to Tyrone.
"I gotta get across town. Right now," he said evenly. "How about it?"
Tyrone nodded grimly, then his face clenched in a scowl of effort. Darkness welled up in his eyes, his face twisted longer and sank into seamed pain. He breathed out, and a ripple of dark cloth poured out like steam on a cold day; moments later, he was swathed in a shroud so dark its highlights were iridescent blue shadow. The shroud flexed, and Tyrone opened his bottomless eyes. His face seemed to be made of ancient leather, or carved driftwood.
"Where are we going?" he asked, his voice deep and smooth and confident.
"Take me to Hyabusa's dojo," Peter said. "If you can let me peek out, I can steer."
"You want Tyrone and me to help?" Tandy asked, straightening, her inner vision momentarily branding a tattooed oval of light around one eye.
"I'm running low on friends," Peter replied seriously. "This thing killed Kravinoff. Logan and Natasha are already involved." He hesitated. "Thanks, but I'd rather you stay out of harm's way on this one."
"You sure?" Tandy asked. She wasn't.
"Trust me," Peter replied. "I'm sure."
The darkness swept around him and then curled into itself, and Tandy exchanged a look with Mary Jane.
"Men," Mary Jane shrugged. "Want some help packing all this up?"
xXx
The hunter effortlessly sprang across the gap between buildings, and Logan felt his pulse hammering in his ears. The hunter. Huge. Logan had no more doubt about how it had circumvented Stark's fence. The massive creature slammed down, and Logan's jaw clenched.
"This fella aint bigger'n Creed was," he grunted. "Let's go."
Logan darted in, driving at the monster with his claws. The huge hunter deflected his strike, but Logan's other fist rammed claws into the hunter's leg. Logan's muscles bulged as he leaned into his mighty strike, and he felt the claws punch through tough flesh and scritch against bone. The hunter let out an unearthly scream, flexing his leg. Logan dragged at his claws, trying to free himself, but he wasn't fast enough.
The hunter smashed a backhand across him, the claws laying his face open and drawing sparks from his skull as he was flung back, his claws jerked free. He smacked through the brick of a stairwell roof access, slamming off the opposite wall, toppling down the stairs in a shower of bricks and dust, unable to tell which way was up.
A shadow loomed over the hole, and a peculiar liquid rolling clatter hissed out of the big hunter. It dropped through the hole Logan had bashed in the wall, thudding down on the rubble and crushing bricks to dust. Logan rolled into the door, swiped up, chopping the doorknob off. He felt feeble as he pushed the door open, and he almost blacked out when he saw the narrow hallway of an apartment building. No room to work.
He flexed his torso, rolling his knees over his head, then rising to a crouch and then to stand tall facing the massive hunter that filled the stairwell.
"Awright," he managed, blood sluicing down the torn mask of his facial flesh. He spat blood. "Let's dance."
He hopped forward, claws slashing; the hunter's wrist blade deflected one strike, and the other hand caught his wrist and jerked him up off his feet. Logan slung a kick into the hunter's belly, and it thudded against hard walls of muscle layered against each other. The hunter flexed and tossed, and Logan found himself sailing through the air down the corridor; whipping his claws out, he winced as they punched into the walls and doorframes and doors, describing an arc of descent. He landed on his feet, yanking his claws clear of the shredded walls. Then he charged the hunter again.
Dropping in a tumble, he counted on the walls hemming the hunter's bulk and limiting his options. Logan popped up slashing at a knee, and the strike was deflected. Too late, the hunter realized the other fist swiped at his face. With a ringing screech and a puff of sparks, Logan raked his claws across the hunter's mask. Part of the mask fell away as Logan rolled back out of easy reach. He rose to his feet.
Beneath the mask, a mandible flexed like some greasy claw-tipped finger.
"What are you?" Logan breathed.
The hunter reached back, pulling a peculiar shape from its belt. Logan braced himself; the hunter tapped a stud, and the object seemed to extrude into a gun of some sort. Logan's eyes widened as the predator lined up on him. He spun, dashing towards the end of the hall.
The speargun fired, and a two-tined dart hissed from the gun. It caught Logan in the back, between his hip and his ribcage. Effortlessly shearing through his tough flesh, it holed him, but bracketed a low rib in adamantium points. The momentum flung him forward to smack into the wall, and the dart dug deep into the concrete. For a moment, Logan could only hang breathless as the exquisite bloom of pain from the unnaturally clean incision flowed through him.
His breath hissed unevenly as his trembling palms pressed against the wall, he gathered himself to push free. Then the hunter's wrist blades plunged into the meat of his lower back, and he couldn't even scream as they ripped clear.
Deeply wounded, Logan could only struggle to blink as the huge hunter's strangely gentle hands cupped around his head, turning it this way and that, as though the hunter was studying the shape of his skull.
He couldn't be sure, but it sounded like the hunter was purring.