Chapter 118:
[Steve Rogers POV]
[2 Weeks Later, AVENGERS HQ, New York City]
Waking up the next morning, I find Psylocke sleeping next to me. Yesterday, she came to me stressed out. Apparently, things that have been going on in the city have stretched out to Westchester, NY. Her work with the X-Men's satellite operations out there put her in the thick of a situation that's been escalating fast—missing people, strange military movements, and sightings of unmarked black vans prowling near mutant enclaves. She hadn't said much when she arrived, just stood in the doorway of my quarters in the way she does—quiet but sharp. She didn't need to explain. I could read it in her eyes. The tension. The weight. So I pulled her in and let her stay. We didn't talk much. Just laid there. Sometimes, silence does more than words ever could. And now, in the soft gray light bleeding through the blinds, I watch her chest rise and fall with that slow, steady rhythm of someone finally at rest. Her hair's a mess, a few strands clinging to her cheek. She looks peaceful. It's rare for her. Rare for any of us these days. I sit up slowly, careful not to wake her, and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. The room is quiet, but my mind isn't. There's too much happening. Too much we don't understand. I reach for my comms unit resting on the table next to my uniform, slip the earpiece in, and activate the line. "EPYON," I say quietly, "Status update on Westchester." The reply comes back in the AI's clipped, neutral tone. "Surveillance feeds remain disrupted in the northern quadrant. Drones deployed by unknown forces continue to mask identification signatures. No new communication from the Xavier Institute in the past ten hours." My jaw clenches. That's not good. The Institute has redundancies—layers of psychic and tech failsafes. For them to go dark means either they're being blocked by something powerful… or someone doesn't want them reaching out. Either way, it confirms what Betsy suspected. This isn't just a New York problem anymore. It's spreading.
I stand and dress quickly, pulling on the bottom half of the uniform, leaving the top unzipped for now. My shield leans against the wall by the door, catching a sliver of morning light across its star. I walk over to the window and look out across the city. From here, it still looks asleep—normal, even. But I know better. There's a rot beneath that skyline. A slow, creeping corrosion dressed up in law and order, sanctioned by politicians and executed by mercs playing soldier. SableGuard's reach is growing. Their presence is no longer confined to the boroughs. Now they're poking at Westchester. And if they're targeting mutants out there, it means they've moved past containment. They're escalating toward something more permanent. Behind me, I hear Psylocke stir. I glance over my shoulder as she pushes herself up on one elbow, eyes still heavy with sleep but sharp underneath. "You're already thinking about what comes next," she murmurs, voice husky. I nod. "Because we don't have the luxury of waiting," I say. She sits up, crossing her legs beneath the sheets, the morning light tracing the edge of a scar just above her collarbone. "I want you to come with me," I say, "We'll head out there today. Quiet. Just the two of us. Eyes and ears first. Spartan and Wanda have Manhattan covered." She doesn't answer right away, just nods once, slow and firm, like she expected the ask, "I'll be ready in ten." That's all I need. I grab the rest of my gear, buckle the shield into place, and head for the briefing room. No grand speeches today. No rallying cries. Just the quiet resolve of two soldiers walking into the storm. And if SableGuard thinks they can pick off our people one town at a time, they're about to learn the hard way—some of us still fight back.
[X-Mention, Westchester, New York]
The quinjet touches down with a low hydraulic hiss, its landing struts pressing into the grass behind the mansion like the legs of some dormant beast. The engines wind down, leaving only the rustle of wind through the trees and the faint hum of the ship's internal systems as Psylocke and I step out. The air out here smells different than Manhattan. Cleaner. Quieter. But beneath it, I feel it—that same tension, coiled tight and waiting. Something isn't right. I can feel it in my bones. It's that same instinct I've carried through wars and disasters, the kind that whispers to you before the first bullet's even fired. We cross the clearing toward the back of the Xavier Institute grounds, boots crunching through brittle leaves and frost-cracked earth. The main building looms ahead like a silent sentinel, its walls old but strong, windows gleaming under the late morning light. This place has always had a certain serenity to it, even in the worst of times. But today? Today, it feels hollow. Wounded. They're already waiting for us. A small group stands near the edge of the garden path—uniforms muted, stances alert. The X-Men. I recognize them instantly, even though years and battles have changed the details. Storm stands tall, arms crossed, her white hair catching the sun like strands of lightning. I see Beast just behind her, massive arms folded, his expression unreadable. Jubilee lingers on the edge of the group, chewing at her thumbnail, eyes scanning the trees like she's waiting for something to jump out of the shadows. But it's the figure in the center that grabs my attention and doesn't let go. Jean Grey. Red hair swept back into a tight braid, posture straight, gaze steady—but there's something in her face. Something broken.
I approach her slowly, scanning the others before locking eyes with her. "Jean," I say quietly. Her mouth curves into something almost like a smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes. Psylocke hangs back a few steps, her presence sharp, silent, watching everything. I tilt my head, "What happened to Scott Summers?" For a moment, I think Jean won't answer. Her lips part slightly, then close again. Then she lowers her eyes—not in shame, but in that slow, deliberate way people do when they're about to say something they still can't believe themselves. "We don't know," she says. Just three words, but they hit harder than I expected. I frown, "What do you mean you don't know?" Jean draws in a breath and looks back up, and now I can see it—the exhaustion etched into the corners of her eyes, the red rims from lack of sleep or too many tears, "He went to investigate a convoy near Salem Center three nights ago. Unmarked vehicles, moving in tight formation, the same profile we've seen around mutant safehouses. He didn't take a team. Just said he'd scout and report." Her voice falters, "He never came back."
Storm steps forward. "We tracked his signal to a wooded area just outside the perimeter. Then it vanished. No distress call. No psychic ping. Nothing," she shakes her head, "It's like he was erased." I exhale slowly, the weight of it settling in my chest. Cyclops isn't the type to disappear. Not quietly. Not like this. If something took him, it was fast, deliberate, and designed to leave no trace. Which means this wasn't just a random hit. Jean folds her arms tightly across her chest like she's trying to hold herself together with pressure alone, "We found scorch marks. Shell casings. Some kind of synthetic residue we haven't been able to identify yet." Her voice drops, "And nobody." The implications burn through my thoughts like wildfire. Psylocke steps up beside me now, her expression hardening as she takes it all in. I glance at her, then back at Jean, "Show us where he disappeared. We'll start there." Jean nods, "Of course." But before she turns, she says quietly, almost like a confession, "He's not the only one. Three students are missing. A teacher. No signs. No noise. Just… gone." I glance toward the mansion, its windows reflecting the sky. The storm isn't coming. It's already here. And we're standing in the middle of it.
[Salem Center Woods, Westchester, New York]
We follow Jean through the garden path and out into the bordering woods. The trees here are tall and skeletal, their bare branches creaking in the wind like old bones rubbing together. There's no birdsong. No movement. Just that eerie stillness that clings to places where something went wrong. Psylocke walks beside me, her hand hovering close to the hilt of her psi-blade, eyes constantly scanning the terrain. Jean moves ahead of us, more focused than she was moments ago, like coming back here triggers something—muscle memory, instinct, dread. We hike deeper into the woods until the trees thin into a small clearing. That's when she stops. Her voice drops low, "This is where we lost him." The ground here tells a story, even if it's been partially erased. Burnt patches mark the dirt in uneven rings. Some trees are scorched black at their base. Others are cleaved at strange angles, like something exploded outward rather than inward. Shell casings still litter the ground—silver, sleek, definitely military issue. Not local PD. Not even standard SHIELD loadout. Psylocke crouches, fingers brushing over a casing before lifting a smear of dark residue from the soil. She sniffs it, frowns, "Synthetic. Could be polymerized tech residue—like the kind we've seen from SableGuard's weapons labs." I kneel beside her, running my hand over the terrain. The soil's disturbed in a circular pattern, too consistent for a random firefight. I glance around. No signs of struggle. No blood. Just one small crater and an absence of everything else. It doesn't make sense. Not unless he was ambushed. Or teleported. Or worse—disintegrated by something designed to do just that.
Jean keeps her distance, arms wrapped around herself. She looks haunted, "We tried telepathic sweeps. Cerebro. Emma. Even Rachel. Nothing." I nod slowly, taking that in. "If they're using tech to block psychic tracking," I say, "Then they're expecting us to come looking. Which means they've done this before." Psylocke straightens, brushing off her gloves. "It's a trap," she mutters, "Or bait." I agree. But we don't walk away from it. That's never been our style. I tap my earpiece, "EPYON, scan this area. Cross-reference tech residue with known weapon systems. Pull any archived SableGuard deployment patterns that overlap mutant population zones." The AI chirps in response. "Compiling. Stand by." A soft hum begins to build in the background as it scans. I rise and turn toward Jean, my tone steady, "We'll find him. But we need more than this." Jean nods once. "There's something else," she says hesitantly and gestures for us to follow. We move a little farther east, just past a grove of trees. That's where we see it—half-buried in the snow, a small rectangular device, humming faintly.
Psylocke moves first, crouching to examine it. "That's a cloaking beacon," she says. "SHIELD-grade, but modified." She turns it over and exposes the underbelly. There's a symbol burned into it—etched deep into the casing. A serpent wrapped around a triangle. I freeze. That's not just tech. That's a mark I've seen before. "That's not SableGuard," I say grimly, "That's CERBERUS." Jean looks confused, but Psylocke immediately stiffens. "You're sure?" she asks. I nod. "Spartan and I saw it once in Madripoor. Buried in a weapons cache designed to destabilize mutant safe zones. If they're involved…," I don't finish. I don't have to. Jean kneels next to it, brushing snow from the surface, "Then whoever took Scott didn't just want him gone. They wanted him to disappear without a trace." I look toward the treeline, my grip tightening on the strap of my shield. The wind picks up again, colder this time, like the forest itself is warning us to turn back. But we don't. "We need to move fast," I say, "If CERBERUS is operating this close to New York, then this isn't an operation anymore. It's an invasion." Psylocke glances at me, her face unreadable. "Then we burn their operation to the ground," she says flatly. I nod once, slow. No more waiting. No more hoping this storm passes over. We find their base. We extract who we can. And we remind them that we are not prey. Jean rises slowly, her voice trembling, "I want to come with you." I look her in the eyes. She's not asking. She's already decided. I nod, "Then we go together." And just like that, the hunt begins.
[Blacksite, Southern Catskills, New York]
The wind lashes at us as we press forward across the rooftop, boots crunching over frost-glazed metal. The only sound is the low hum of power running through conduits beneath our feet—too uniform for a derelict facility, too clean for a hidden lab. No sentries. No drones. No perimeter alarms. It's the kind of silence that doesn't settle—it coils. Psylocke signals left, her psi-blade igniting with a low thrum of psychic energy. Jean stays center, eyes glowing faintly as she scans the compound with her mind. Nothing. No thoughts. No presence. It's like the place is asleep. Or worse—dead. Then, the air shifts. A sudden hiss erupts beneath us, and the rooftop buckles. Steel panels retract in an instant, the floor giving way as vents blast out thick clouds of suppressant gas, cold and metallic. I shout, "Fall back!" but it's too late. The rooftop is a trap, collapsing like a sprung bear trap. I plant my shield into the surface and brace, but the pull of suction drags me through the opening as if gravity's been cranked to eleven. I land hard on a grated platform below, rolling into a ready stance just as the emergency lighting flares on—blood red and pulsing. They don't need to announce the ambush. Because they're already here. Troopers fan out from the smoke, black armor glinting with ceramic plating, visors red and shaped like predator's eyes. No insignia. No faces. Just movement—precise, brutal, rehearsed. CERBERUS. Their rifles come up in synchronized motion. I raise my shield instinctively as gunfire erupts, slamming into vibranium with deafening force. Sparks explode off my left side. I pivot, absorbing the shots and hurling my shield across the floor. It slams into two troopers, ricocheting off their helmets before snapping back into my grip. Psylocke drops beside me like a ghost, slicing through the first wave. Her blade cuts through synthetic armor like parchment, each stroke efficient and lethal. She spins low, planting her hand on the floor as she impales a soldier behind her, then uses the body as cover to vault into another. Jean hovers back, eyes lit like twin suns as she flings bodies aside with telekinetic blasts, their rifles crumpling mid-air like soda cans. But for everyone we drop, two more steps forward. They're trying to tire us out—force attrition. I duck a plasma bolt and close the distance, shoulder-slamming a trooper into the wall before sweeping his legs and bringing my knee down hard into his chest plate. Something cracks.
But then I hear it. A sound that doesn't belong to any rifle. It's wet. Mechanical. And hungry. A steel-on-steel shriek screams across the corridor, followed by a thunderous thud as something massive lands behind the troops. The CERBERUS line parts, forming a corridor of dread. From it, he steps into view. Omega Red. Time stops for a second, not because of fear but recognition. The last time I saw him, he was a weapon of war, a Soviet terror wrapped in carbonadium tendrils and hatred, his body laced with experimental toxins designed to kill slowly and horribly. I remember the snow of 1944. I remember the villagers he murdered in his first field test. And I remember putting him down. Hard. But he's not just alive. He's upgraded. His pale skin is splotched with surgical scars, muscles fed by biotic implants, and veins that glow faintly with some unholy chemical compound. The carbonadium coils slither from his wrists, flexing like snakes eager to strike. His voice is guttural, like broken machinery given shape. "Rogers," he growls, "Still wearing that star. Still believing in myths."
I square up, shield raised, "You should've stayed buried." He lunges. The coils lash out, aiming for my legs. I roll sideways, letting one whip past as I slam my shield against the other. The impact vibrates down my arm. This metal isn't just carbonadium anymore—it's laced with something denser. I dodge left as the tendrils slam into the ground, tearing a trench through steel plating. I get one good punch in—shield edge to jaw—but it's like hitting a slab of frozen meat. He doesn't even flinch. Instead, he grabs me with one coil and slams me into a support column. The world flashes white. Psylocke intercepts him before he can follow up, her psi-blade slicing into the coils. Omega Red howls as the psychic energy sizzles through his arm, but he retaliates instantly, knocking her into the wall with the back of his fist. The metal dents on impact. She crumples, groaning but alive. Jean screams, her power surging in a wave, flinging half the room's troopers into the air. But Omega Red pivots, throwing one of his own men into her like a cannonball. She goes down in a heap.
I push off the column and charge him again. We trade blows—shield against claw, bone against reinforced sinew. He's faster than before. Stronger. I manage to drive my shield into his ribs and shove him back a step, but then the coils wrap around my throat. He lifts me effortlessly, eyes gleaming with malice. "You don't get to win this time, Captain," he hisses, "You're not in charge of this world anymore." Pain lances through my neck as the coils constrict. My vision blurs. I can hear Jean screaming my name, but it's distant like it's coming through the water. Then there's a flash—brilliant, white-hot—and I fall. The tendrils release. Jean used the last of her strength to blast him off me, but she collapses after, out cold. I stagger, chest heaving, every muscle burning. Omega Red shakes off the blow, his body steaming from the telekinetic burst. He gestures. The remaining CERBERUS troopers descend. I reach for Psylocke, but a stun baton cracks across my ribs. My knees buckle. Another shock to the back of my head, and I fall. Through the haze, I see them drag Jean's unconscious form into a transport pod. Psylocke is limp, blood trickling from her temple. I try to rise, but another strike sends darkness swimming in. Omega Red looms over me. "You should've died in the last war, Captain," he sneers, "Now you'll live to see how we reshape the future." Then the black swallows me whole.
[Spartan POV]
[AVENGERS HQ, New York City]
[Mission Room.] It's been two whole hours since Cap's last contact. I know because I've been staring at the mission timer on the main console, watching the digits tick upward like they're mocking me. The last update came through clean—encrypted burst transmission, Cap's voice calm but edged with that low tension he always carries when the stakes shift. Coordinates. Suspected CERBERUS activity. A blacksite embedded in the Catskills. Then, radio silence. No response to pings. No data bursts. Not even a passive telemetry handshake from Jean's psychic locator tag. Just silence. The kind of silence that isn't empty—it's heavy. Tells you something's gone wrong without having to say a damn word. I lean against the mission table, arms crossed, visor reflecting the soft blue of the holo-map as EPYON cycles through satellite feeds and sensor data. The Catskills region is grainy, incomplete—scrambled at the edges by jamming tech too sophisticated to be local. Not SableGuard. Not SHIELD. No government blacksite uses a null field like this unless they're trying to keep even psychic signatures from bleeding out. That narrows it down to one name. CERBERUS. Bastards always leave fingerprints in the places they're trying to erase. "EPYON," I say, voice clipped, "Status report. Any movement near Cap's last coordinates?" "Negative," the AI responds instantly, sterile and focused, "All heat signatures dissipated at 19:04. Telemetry is static. No active comms detected within a five-mile radius." I clench my jaw and exhale slowly through my nose. That means one of two things—either they're deep inside the compound and getting no signal out… or they've been taken. I know Steve. He doesn't go dark without a reason. He sure as hell doesn't miss a check-in. If he's not answering, it's because he can't.
I press my gloved fingers against the edge of the table, trying to push down the rising urge to bolt out the door and head to the hangar myself. Wanda would kill me if I didn't stop to think first, but the thought of Cap, Psylocke, and Jean being inside enemy hands makes the blood in my veins feel like it's turning to fire. I've seen what CERBERUS does to prisoners. I've seen what they did to subjects in their "containment zones." And the moment I heard that name come out of Steve's mouth—the moment I saw that serpent emblem pop up on the scan data—I knew we weren't just dealing with rogue mercs anymore. We're staring down something deeper. Older. And a hell of a lot more dangerous. I pace. One lap around the room. Then another. My suit's servos hum softly with each step, like the armor itself is growing restless. I stop near the northern wall, where a tactical board glows with mission logs and incident reports. I key into Cap's last feed manually, pulling up the visual burst he sent right before insertion. Rooftop overview. Layout of the facility. The exterior is too clean. Too quiet. It's a kill box disguised as a lab. He had to know. But he still went in. Because that's who Steve Rogers is.
The door opens behind me. I don't turn, but I hear the soft footfalls. Wanda. I recognize her rhythm without needing to see her. "You haven't moved," she says gently. "I can't," I murmur, eyes still locked on the data feed, "Not until I know where he is." She steps closer. I can feel the warmth of her hand near my shoulder, not touching, but there. Anchoring me. "I'm coming with you," she says with no hesitation. I nod once. Quiet. Because two hours is already too long. And I'm done waiting. Another sound follows—heels softer, more deliberate. A different cadence. Karai. She moves with that predator grace she never lost, even after we left the streets behind. "Just finished slicing into CERBERUS's off-grid relay tower," she says, stepping into the light. Her voice is dry, sharp. "They're moving someone. Cargo classified as HVT. Multiple biosigns. One of them matches Jean Grey's vitals." I finally turn. Her eyes are already locked on mine, and there's no mistaking the fire behind them, "You're not going without me." I don't argue, "Three-man drop. Covert entry." She smirks faintly, pulling up her hood, "Didn't expect anything less." Wanda shifts beside me, her expression cool but fierce, "Then let's bring them home." I nod, my voice low and firm, "Gear up. Wheels up in five." Because if they think they can take Rogers and vanish into the dark, they're about to learn what happens when you back SHIELD operators into a corner.
[Blacksite, Southern Catskills, New York]
[Rooftop.] At first glance, everything seems normal and quiet, but appearances can be deceiving. Doing a fly-by, Wanda, Karai, and I leap off the quinjet onto the building rooftop. Gravity hits hard, but we've done this a hundred times before. Knees flex, boots absorb the shock, and we're already in motion before the rooftop even settles from the impact. Karai is a shadow beside me, silent and poised, slipping into position like a blade sliding into its sheath. Wanda lands just behind, a ripple of scarlet energy trailing her descent like a comet's tail, her presence crackling with restrained power. The building below hums with a low, almost imperceptible thrum of energy—not the lazy buzz of a forgotten generator, but something deeper, buried beneath layers of concrete and steel. The kind of power signature you only find in off-grid installations designed to run black experiments without oversight. I crouch at the edge of the rooftop, scanning the perimeter. "No sentries. No drones. That doesn't sit right," I mutter. Karai pulls out a compact sensor array from her belt and unfolds it like a fan. It flickers to life with a pale green glow as she waves it slowly across the surface of the roof, "They're masking their EM signature. Some kind of active null field—we're not going to get eyes inside with standard tech." "Then we do it the old-fashioned way," I say, unslinging the magnetic breaching bar from my back. Wanda steps up beside me, eyes narrowed. "You feel that?" she asks. I nod, "Yeah. Pressure. Like we're standing on the lid of a sealed jar." Karai kneels at a vent hatch and begins slicing through the security panel, "Give me thirty seconds. Then we drop." Wanda doesn't speak, but I see the way her fingers curl just slightly. She's bracing herself not just for combat—but for what we might find. The panel pops open with a click. Karai nods once, "We're in."
[Inside.] I go first. Slide down the shaft, boots catching the interior rungs, dropping into the upper catwalk of a dark, industrial corridor. The air is cold—unnaturally so—and laced with a chemical sting that settles in the back of my throat. My visor auto-adjusts, casting the world in blue-tinted night vision. The facility is… quiet. Not abandoned. Maintained. Operated. But quiet in the way, a snake waits in tall grass. Karai lands beside me a second later. Wanda follows, her descent cushioned by a pulse of scarlet mist. We fan out, clearing the hallway section by section. I run a quick ECHO scan—projecting the digital overlay across the corridor in front of me. Shadows crawl. The shapes of walls, bulkheads, and blast doors. No heat signatures. No movement. But there—three floors below. A burst of static, faint but rhythmic. Heartbeats. Faint and slow but unmistakably human. "Third level," I whisper, "Holding cells."
Karai gives a tight nod. Wanda's gaze hardens. We move. Swift. Surgical. Down two flights via utility stairs, bypassing the main elevator shaft. Everything about this place is wrong. Too clean. Too cold. Not just in temperature but design—walls without markings, corridors without signs, air that tastes sterile and dead. The kind of place built to make people vanish. At the second sublevel, we breach a security door. The chamber beyond is lined with cells—thick glass walls, reinforced seams, and interior restraints. No windows. No handles. Just containment. Some are empty. Others… not. Wanda presses a hand to the glass of one. Her brow furrows, "She's here. Jean. But she's unconscious. Drugged." Karai's already working on the lock, fingers flying over the console, rerouting internal command protocols, "They've got her hooked to a neural inhibitor." The lock clicks. The glass recedes. I move inside and kneel beside her. "Jean," I whisper, checking her pulse. It's weak but stable. She stirs slightly, groaning. Wanda kneels beside me, placing her fingers on Jean's temple. A soft red glow pulses. "I can't undo it all," she says, "But I can wake her." Jean inhales sharply, eyes fluttering open. She blinks, dazed, "Cap… where's Cap?" Before I can answer, EPYON's voice cracks through my comms, "Warning. Hostiles inbound. Multiple biosigns approaching the sublevel corridor." Karai draws her stun pistol and grins, "Looks like they know we're here." I rise slowly, pulling Jean gently into a sitting position and handing her off to Wanda. Then I draw my combat knife and stun pistol. "Time to finish what they started," I mutter and move toward the door. Because we didn't come here to run. We came to bring our people home. And burn the rest to the ground.
The lights in the corridor flicker once. Then again. Then they die altogether, plunging us into darkness—but not silence. The hum of something mechanical builds, like a warning purr from the throat of a predator you can't see yet. I don't hesitate. My visor kicks into low-light mode, casting the world in shades of grayscale and soft-blue overlays. I move toward the door, grip tightening around the hilt of my knife, the other hand flexing around my stun pistol. Behind me, Wanda supports Jean, her powers weaving a faint red lattice of protection around them both. Karai slips into a crouch beside the wall, eyes tracking movement even I can't see yet. Her breathing slows. Her presence narrows. We're all waiting for the strike. Then it comes. The bulkhead doors hiss open with hydraulic pressure, and the first wave of CERBERUS troopers floods the corridor. They move in a tight diamond formation—two forward, two rear—suppressive rifles raised and visors gleaming red. They don't yell. Don't bark commands. Just engage. Silent. Efficient. Bad move. I rush forward before they can fan out, low and fast. The first soldier doesn't even have time to react—my combat knife jams under his arm and into the seam of the ceramic armor. A twist, a jerk, and I drag his collapsing body into the second man's legs, toppling him. I pivot and drop my knee into his throat, cutting off the scream before it forms. The third trooper lifts his rifle—too slow. I throw the knife. It spins once in the air and buries itself into the soft side of his helmet with a dull thunk. He stumbles, hands flying to his head. Karai is already behind him, using his moment of pain to vault up and wrap her legs around his neck. She twists. He falls like a puppet with its strings cut. The fourth gets a shot off. It grazes my arm, glancing off the suit's upper plating, but the heat still scorches through the kinetic mesh. I ignore it. I close the distance and grab the barrel of his rifle, yanking it downward while driving an elbow into his visor. Glass cracks. His grip loosens. I spin him and hook my arm around his neck, choking him out with clean, methodical pressure until he drops limp.
"Four down," Karai mutters, her voice clipped, "More coming." She's right. My visor pings a cluster of red dots closing fast—fifteen, maybe twenty. Two squads. And they're flanking. I move back into the corridor intersection and plant myself in the middle. The lights flicker again, then blaze red as the emergency alert finally kicks in. Strobes wash the steel walls in violent crimson pulses. I breathe in slow. Center my weight. Time to work. One squad pours in from the right. I dash in before they can react. CQC flows like instinct now—grab, strike, disarm, eliminate. I slam my boot into the lead trooper's kneecap and ride his collapse into a spinning elbow that smashes his faceplate. I yank his sidearm mid-fall and turn it on his partner, double-tap to the chest. He stumbles. I close and bash him with the butt of the pistol. One-two combo, down. A third charges, screaming. I sidestep, twist his arm into a joint lock, and use his own momentum to flip him onto his back. A sharp stomp to the solar plexus silences him. Fourth tries to blindside me—too late. I duck, roll forward, grab his ankle mid-sprint, and haul him into the wall with a bone-cracking crunch.
One more—he's smarter, stays back, firing from a crouch. I slide into cover behind a junction pillar, holster the pistol, and pull a flash charge from my belt. Bounce it off the far wall. Pop—brilliant light, then screaming. I vault over the rail and pounce, taking him down with a full-body slam. My forearm presses into his throat. He fights it, kicks, thrashes. I lean in. He goes still. I rise, chest heaving, blood pumping so hard I can feel it in my ears. My muscles burn—but I'm not slowing down. I can't. Gunfire explodes behind me. Wanda lets loose with a concussive burst that flings a pair of advancing troopers back down the hall like ragdolls. Their armor sparks and peels away under the sheer force. She turns her hand, twisting the air, and collapses part of the ceiling onto the next wave, trying to push through the bulkhead. Metal groans. Screams vanish under the rubble. Karai dances through the chaos, quick and clean. Her stun pistol fires in precise bursts, each one aimed at exposed gaps in armor—elbows, knees, throat guards. Every shot counts. When one soldier gets too close, she flips over his back and shoves a short blade under his chin, right into the visor's lower seal. His body seizes, then drops.
More enemies arrive. I count at least six in heavier armor—riot-grade troopers. Shields. Pulse cannons. Designed for shock and awe. I grin behind my mask. Now we're talking. I sprint forward, zig-zagging to avoid the spread of their suppressive fire. Their formation holds for a second—then I disrupt it. I hurl a concussive charge at their feet. The blast staggers them, shields raised. I slide low, underneath the guard of the first shield carrier, and drive my shoulder into his gut. He reels. I grab the edge of his shield and spin, using it like a blade to bash the trooper beside him. Their line fractures. Karai flanks them, firing stun rounds at their backs. Wanda rips the cannon from one of their arms and turns it into a swirling mass of molten debris, hurling it across the corridor like a comet. It detonates against the far wall, clearing the rest of the wave. I charge the last shield trooper and slam into him with everything I've got, shield-to-shield. He braces, but I'm stronger. My boot lands against his thigh. I shove him back. When his footing slips, I ram the edge of my own tactical shield into his neck. One final strike and he's out cold. Silence returns—but it's not peace. It's the breath between storms. EPYON pings, "Hostile presence declining. Reinforcements rerouted. You have six minutes before the central security grid reboots." Six minutes. That's all we need. I look back—Wanda's already helping Jean to her feet, her expression tight but focused. Karai is sweeping the last body for intel. I reload, retrieve my blade, and start moving toward the reinforced blast doors at the end of the corridor. "Let's find Cap," I say, voice cold and low. Because I've had enough of this place. And I'm not leaving until we take it all down.
We make our way into a security control room. The door hisses open with a hydraulic whine, revealing a space lit only by flickering red emergency lights and the intermittent pulse of failing monitors. Dust floats in the air like ash. Panels are cracked. Consoles sparking. Someone tried to wipe this place clean—but they were in a hurry. Sloppy. Karai rushes forward first, sliding into the main operator's seat. Her fingers blur across the interface, tearing down firewalls and rerouting power from subsystems that are still warm. "They started a purge protocol," she mutters, eyes narrowing, "But it didn't finish. I can recover partial logs. Maybe access internal surveillance if I reroute through the auxiliary processor grid." Wanda positions Jean carefully in the corner of the room, propping her against the wall. Jean's eyes flutter open again, dazed but more focused now. "Cap," she croaks, "He's still alive. They separated us… drugged us… but I felt him before they locked me down." Wanda kneels beside her, gently placing her hands over Jean's temples. Her magic pulses softly, threading through Jean's mind like silk, "I'll help you stabilize. Stay with us, Jean." I move through the room, clearing blind spots. My visor maps the floor in real-time, building a tactical overlay of the facility's last known structure. The deeper we go, the more irregular this place becomes. Parts of it were never meant to exist—not on any blueprint, not in any military databank. Blacksite is too kind a word. This is a prison. A lab. An execution chamber all rolled into one. "Got a ping," Karai says, tone clipped and sharp. I turn. She doesn't look up, "Sublevel 5. One life sign matching Cap's biometric signature." A grainy, black-and-white image flutters across a secondary screen. Cap. Shackled. Head slumped. Bruises are visible even through the static. My chest tightens. Then, something moves in the background. Massive. Bipedal. Slow. Whatever it is, it walks with weight. A dragging limp. Then, the screen glitches, and the feed dies.
"What was that?" Wanda asks, standing upright, her magic still laced around Jean's shoulders. Karai exhales through her nose, "I don't know. Something big." "We'll deal with it when we get there," I say flatly. I don't let the heat in my voice slip. Cap's alive. That's all I need to know. The how and why come later. "Route?" I ask. "There's a maintenance shaft behind this room," Karai replies, already moving toward it, "Drops 4 levels. Direct line to the containment corridor. We bypass the alarms if we cut the hardlines." I follow, drawing my knife as we move. Wanda stays close to Jean, but Jean waves her off, pushing herself up against the wall with a stubborn breath, "Go. Get him. I'll hold here and watch the flank." Karai slices through the wall panel, revealing a tight service shaft lined with coolant pipes and climbing rungs. She doesn't wait. She drops in. I follow a second later. Wanda's right behind me, her fingers humming with raw energy.
[Sublevel 5.] The descent is fast. Controlled. Metal groans under our weight, echoing into the depths. When we hit the ground level, it's colder. Darker. The lights here barely function—just emergency strips along the floor. The hallway stretches ahead, wrapped in shadows and a thin mist that clings to everything like breath on a window. EPYON chimes in, low and clear in my ear, "Warning. Proximity alert. Unknown lifeform detected in adjacent corridor. Biometrics unavailable. Proceed with caution." Wanda exhales beside me, steadying her stance, "Whatever's down here… it's not human." I grip the hilt of my blade and pistol tighter, "Then we treat it like it's hostile." We advance in formation—tight, efficient, deadly. The reinforced doors at the end of the hall are sealed with triple-lock magnetic barriers, but Karai's already ahead of us, bypassing the locks with a portable breaker unit. The doors groan open. And the room beyond feels like a tomb. We step into it—three against the dark—knowing only this: Cap's in there, something's guarding him, and we're not leaving without a fight.
The moment the blast doors finish retracting, the temperature drops. It's not just the cold of industrial metal or recycled air—it's something unnatural. Wrong. Like the air itself is recoiling from what lies ahead. A low fog snakes across the chamber floor, veiling the grating in thin white coils that swirl around our boots. The lights overhead are busted—just flickering remnants casting erratic shadows across steel walls and suspended restraint rigs. And then I see him. Cap. Shackled to a vertical slab of reinforced alloy, his arms stretched overhead, wrists pinned in a restraint rig humming with containment field energy. He's alive, barely—head hanging forward, blood trailing down his temple. His uniform is torn, chest-plate cracked, but his presence is unmistakable. That same defiant weight. Even unconscious, Steve Rogers refuses to look broken. I start moving before I even realize it—steps quick, pistol and knife drawn. Wanda follows close behind, her hands already glowing with scarlet energy. Karai peels left, circling wide along the edge of the chamber. We know the rhythm by heart. But then I feel it. That pause. That drag.
The fog stirs. A sound cuts through the stillness—metal sliding against metal, wet and mechanical, like chains dragged through viscera. My visor pings an anomaly, but the feed jitters. I slow my approach, lifting my head just as a shape emerges from the far end of the room. It steps into view with a hiss of hydraulic limbs and a low growl of something not quite human. Massive. Pale. Covered in surgical scars that stretch across its torso like a butcher's carving diagram. Thick metal tendrils slither from bracers on each forearm—living cables forged of carbonadium, twitching with lethal anticipation. His eyes glow faint red, sunken deep behind a ridged brow, his breath clouding the air like smoke from a frozen engine. And then he speaks, "New rats… same maze." His voice is ruined—guttural and heavy, as if forced through shredded vocal cords rebuilt by machines. He starts walking toward us with that same dragging limp I saw on the broken security feed, coils twitching behind him like snakes sensing blood.
I don't hesitate. I fire a stun round directly at his center mass. The blast hits—sparks fly off his reinforced ribcage—but he doesn't slow. Doesn't flinch. Just grins. Karai fires next—a tight burst of calibrated rounds meant to penetrate ceramic plating. Two hits. One sinks deep into his left shoulder. He still doesn't slow. Wanda flicks her hand forward. Red energy crashes into him like a wave—but he absorbs it. The coils wrap around the energy like feeding tendrils, siphoning it into his bracers. He actually laughs. "Your tricks won't save you," he growls, and then he lunges. He's faster than he looks. The coils whip toward me—one lashes across my chest, slamming me back into the floor. My combat suit absorbs most of the impact, but my ribs scream from the kinetic pressure. I roll to the side just as the second coil pierces the floor where my head was a second ago. Steel buckles. Sparks fly. Karai moves like lightning—vaulting off a support beam and flipping over his head, slamming a blade into the base of his skull. It clinks off metal plating. He grabs her mid-air and throws her across the room. She crashes into a support pillar, groaning as she lands hard but stays conscious.
Wanda sends a second wave of energy—not at him, but the coil itself. She isolates the section he used to lash me and turns it into molten slag. He snarls and retracts the ruined cable, his arm twitching erratically from the damage. I get to my feet and charge. This time, I go low—under his remaining coil—sliding between his legs and driving my combat knife into the back of his knee joint. He roars. I twist the blade, pull it free, and slash upward into his side, hitting just beneath the rib line. His arm swings down, catching me across the shoulder like a freight train. I slam into the floor again, pain blooming across my back like a solar flare. Wanda floats off the ground now, both arms extended, her aura pulsing in waves. She screams—not from rage, but from focus. Her magic spikes and collapses into a single beam that blasts the brute in the chest, launching him back into the far wall. The impact leaves a crater. He's dazed—but only for a second. He pulls himself free, blood and oil mixing across his torso, and then he reaches for something at his belt. A vial. Green. Glowing. He injects it into his neck. His veins light up. His breathing spikes. He roars and charges. I intercept him halfway with my shield, slamming it full-force into his gut. He grabs the edge, pulls me with it, and slams me into the floor again.
But this time, I'm ready. I kick up, planting both boots into his stomach and launching him back. I flip to my feet, grab a flash charge from my belt, and snap-throw it. Karai, now back on her feet, times it perfectly—she shuts her eyes and dives behind a support beam. Wanda covers hers with a quick shield. The detonation blinds him for two seconds. That's all we need. Karai's already behind him again—jamming a shock rod into the base of his spine. His body seizes. Wanda wraps her energy around his limbs, holding him in place just long enough for me to sprint forward, leap, and drive both boots into his chest—full drop-kick style. He crashes to the floor. Not unconscious. But pinned. "Now!" I shout. Wanda slams both hands down and encases him in a sphere of crackling magic, compressing his limbs until the coils can't move. Karai jumps onto his chest, driving a second blade into his arm and disabling the coil mechanisms. He screams. He writhes. But he's not going anywhere.
I roll off him, stagger to Cap's side, and slice through the magnetic restraints with a voltage knife. They spark once, then disengage. Cap collapses forward—but I catch him. He blinks up at me, dazed, bloodied, and still breathing. "Took you long enough," he rasps. I grin beneath my helmet, "You're welcome." Then I lift him up, sling his arm over my shoulder, and turn to the team. "We're not done here," I say.
"No, we can't leave yet. Cyclops is still around here somewhere. I saw him while I was being dragged to this holding cell," Cap voices. His words hit like a cold knife. I pause mid-step, adjusting my hold to keep him steady. Wanda stiffens behind me, her gaze narrowing, while Karai's head snaps around, focus sharpening like a blade honed mid-battle. "Are you sure?" I ask, not because I doubt him—but because I need to hear it. Cap nods, slow and strained, his voice hoarse but steady, "Positive. He was alive. Sedated. Different holding wing—north corridor, I think. I remember steel doors and a coolant vent overhead. Two CERBERUS handlers dragging him past a series of server banks. He was trying to fight it—eyes glowing even through the drug haze." He coughs and wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, "He's close." Wanda is already moving. "Then we're not leaving without him," she says, her voice edged with something sharp and final. Karai steps to a nearby wall console, sliding a cracked override spike into the panel, "North corridor leads into a deep cellblock—old tech, heavy EM shielding. It's not on the schematics because it wasn't part of the original facility. They built it after CERBERUS took over." Sparks fly as she forces a system bypass. "I can get the doors open, but it's going to trigger internal movement protocols. We won't have stealth once we make the pull."
"Then we go loud," I say, readying my pistol. Cap's wounds start to heal due to his enhanced regeneration. It's slow—slower than I'd like—but the bleeding stops, and some of the bruising beneath his eyes begins to fade. His body's catching up, even if his strength hasn't returned yet. I adjust my grip on him, but his weight's already less of a burden. That's a good sign. Wanda nods, stepping up beside us with her hands glowing faintly, the remnants of her earlier spell still laced along her arms like veins of red fire. "I'll handle crowd control," she murmurs. Karai doesn't wait. The console hisses as the bypass completes, and the secondary blast doors on the north corridor unlock with a sharp clank. Alarms don't blare—but something deeper pulses through the floor. A rumble. The hum of machinery that wasn't active moments ago. We step into the new hallway and everything shifts. The walls here are older—thicker—and lined with alloy plating reinforced for maximum containment. The lights are dimmer. The air is colder. The silence isn't just tactical—it's engineered. "No cams. No turrets. No tracking nodes," Karai mutters, scanning with her handheld, "They didn't build this for surveillance. They built it to hold something they were afraid of." I feel it, too. The air changes the deeper we go. The mist is gone. The fog is replaced by a dry, charged pressure that crackles faintly with every breath. We move fast. Controlled. No words. Just formation.
The corridor splits ahead—two wings, marked only by numbered panels etched into steel. Cap squints, pointing left, "There. That vent—same one I saw. The coolant was leaking." I nod once and motion Karai forward. She takes point, slipping into a low stance, scanning for traps or pressure plates. Nothing obvious. Too clean. Too deliberate. Wanda hangs close behind me, her attention divided between our six and the doors flanking the corridor. Then we reach the last junction. The reinforced blast door at the end is different—thicker. Double-sealed. Cap leans against the wall as I set him down gently. "Rest. We'll handle the pull," I say. He tries to argue, but he's spent. He knows it. Wanda steps forward, weaving a spell matrix into the seams of the lock. Karai plugs in her spike at the base. "Thirty seconds," she mutters, already sweating from the residual heat the lock's generating. "EPYON," I whisper into my mic, "Scan beyond the door." A pause. Then the AI responds, "One life sign. Elevated vitals. Deep sedation. No immediate hostels in proximity. But movement detected in surrounding wings—staggered patrol patterns converging within six minutes." Wanda's eyes glow brighter, "We won't need six." The lock thunks. The door begins to groan open. I brace for what's on the other side.
When the door finally creaks open, every muscle in my body tenses—not out of fear, but anticipation. I'm expecting resistance. Maybe another wave of CERBERUS troopers with rifles raised or some prototype war beast snarling behind the threshold. What I'm not ready for… is the silence. The room beyond is dark. Not like the rest of this place—this isn't just low visibility. This is intentional. A blackness designed to isolate. Strip senses. Starve perception. A moment passes before the lights flicker weakly to life, one by one, lining the ceiling like guttering candles in a crypt. And then we see him. Cyclops. He's suspended mid-chamber, arms bound above his head, legs secured at the ankles, the weight of his body sagging from reinforced manacles that connect to the ceiling and floor in jagged angles. The restraints aren't just functional—they're surgical. Calibrated. Stripped from some brutal lab manual meant for subjects, not soldiers. There's dried blood on the floor beneath him, thick and black, where it pooled over time. Tubes hang limp from puncture ports in his arms and sides. Electrodes are burned into his skin—some melted through the fabric, others drilled directly into scar tissue. I hear Wanda suck in a sharp breath behind me. Karai's already halfway into a crouch, knives out, scanning for threats. But I'm locked in place. Because that's not the worst part. Not even close. It's his eyes. They're sewed shut. I stagger forward without meaning to, boots clanging against the floor grates. My mind races to catch up with what my eyes are screaming at me. Cyclops—Scott Summers—leader of the X-Men, one of the most controlled, focused, and dangerous mutants in the world, is hanging in front of me with his eyelids pierced shut by surgical suture wire, like some nightmare stitchwork carved by hands that knew exactly what they were doing. Each thread glints faintly in the light, tied with clinical precision, crisscrossed in a way that makes it impossible for him to open them even if he tried. And he did. I can see the strain on his face. The welts. The way the skin is inflamed around the edges. He fought it. And lost.
"What the hell did they do to him?" I whisper, my voice barely audible. No one answers. No one has to. The silence is answered enough. Wanda moves first, stepping past me with a kind of haunted grace, her hands trembling as they glow to life. She hovers beside him but doesn't touch—not yet. Her power spirals into gentle tendrils of energy, scanning, assessing, and feeling. "He's alive," she says, and there's relief in her voice, but it's laced with fury, too, "But his neural activity is suppressed. His power is locked down with chemical inhibitors, and these…" She gestures toward the sutures with a trembling hand, "These aren't just to blind him. They're ritualistic. Someone wanted to humiliate him." Karai mutters a curse under her breath, "Sick bastards. This isn't just containment. It's desecration." I step forward, kneeling beside him. "Scott," I murmur, reaching up to brace his shoulder, "It's Spartan. We're here. We're getting you out." His head lolls weakly to one side, mouth slightly open. His lips move, slow and dry, forming words I can't hear. Wanda leans in, and then she hears it, too. "Cap… where's Cap…?" he asks, voice weak. "He's safe," I say, "We've got him. We're all getting out of here." Karai's already at the restraint column, her fingers working fast, "Give me forty seconds. These locks are DNA coded to his biosignature—modified. I need to break them without triggering the failsafe." I nod, but my gaze never leaves him. This isn't just a rescue anymore. This is a reckoning. Because whatever CERBERUS thought they could do here, whatever message they were trying to send by mutilating one of the most powerful mutants on Earth—they're about to find out we don't just rescue our own. We avenge them.
[Outside.] Once we're back outside with Cap, Cyclops, and Jean, I turn to Wanda. My voice is low, but it carries the full weight of everything we've seen inside, "Burn it." She doesn't say anything. Doesn't need to. She just nods once—curt and final—then steps forward, eyes already glowing, hands curling into slow, deliberate motion. Her coat ripples behind her like a banner in a storm, the air warping around her as reality bends in waves with each movement. That's when I feel it—the shift. The quiet snap in the air, like a circuit closing or a heartbeat syncing to something deeper, older. Behind me, I hear Cap grunting as he adjusts his weight on the evac rig, Jean helping to stabilize him. Cyclops lies still beside them on the extraction mat, his chest rising and falling in a slow, measured rhythm. The sedatives are still in his system, but he's alive. And that's more than we could say an hour ago. His head is bandaged, his eyelids still sewn shut, but the tension in his body has eased. Wanda's earlier touch must've numbed the pain. Jean hovers close, hand resting gently on his shoulder, like she's willing him to stay tethered to the world a little longer. Karai moves to my side, silent. She doesn't say a word, but I can feel the energy radiating off her—the same boiling edge I've got coursing through me. This place wasn't a facility. It was a crucible. A place where human ethics went to die, and monsters were forged by design. Wanda steps out ahead of us now, her silhouette outlined by the raw, surging chaos coiling around her fingers. Red light pulses through the darkness, casting jagged shadows across the treeline, dancing off the edge of the cracked ridgeline like blood smeared on fractured glass. Her lips move—silent incantations older than language—each syllable layered with weight, resonance, and truth.
And then it begins. The earth moans. Literally moans. The ground beneath the facility splits with a sound like a stone being crushed under celestial pressure. Light spears upward from the cracks—sickly and red, like the place is bleeding from the core. The sky darkens unnaturally as the air thickens, charged with the scream of ruptured physics. You can smell it, taste it— ozone, charred steel, scorched memory. Wanda lifts her hands skyward and brings them down like twin executioner's blades. The blacksite erupts. Not with fire. Not with a traditional explosion. This is something else. The entire facility folds inward, imploding on itself in a violent, red-lit collapse of time, space, and molecular certainty. One moment it's there—a fortress of concrete and steel and cruelty. Next, it's gone. Nothing but a scorched crater rimmed in glowing runes that vanished as quickly as they appeared. The ground where the main chamber once stood sinks several feet like the earth itself is trying to forget the place ever existed. For a moment, no one says anything. We just watch. Listen. The trees groan in the wind. The stars peer through the shroud of retreating clouds, indifferent and silent. Then Cap mutters behind me, voice ragged but steady, "Good." Wanda exhales, her shoulders finally lowering. She turns back toward us, eyes dimming as the last flickers of chaos magic dissolve around her. She's pale but steady. I meet her gaze. No words. Just a shared understanding. This place won't hurt anyone else. I look back down at Cyclops. Then at Jean. Then, at the smoldering ruin we've left behind. And I make a promise, right there in the cold catskill air. This is just the beginning. We're going to dismantle CERBERUS.