Post by Wachter on Jun 24, 2018 4:59:22 GMT
Invincible
Witchbreed Pt. 2
Then
The blanket was pulled tight over Runt's convulsing body. Samuel tried to keep him steady, from rolling off the pathetic excuse for a mattress they gave him, and was always ready with a bucket for vomit and blood. The commando didn't understand why this man was being so kind to him. The others had taken flight the moment Zemo's goons dragged him back. It wasn't out of jealousy that he had no labor assigned to him. It was straight fear. They feared the man who could not die.
Not that Zemo hadn't tried.
First in, only ones out.
It'd become his mantra, his dream, his achievement of the ultimate nirvana. It kept him sane or sanish. Three days spent in various gas chambers as Zemo explored just how his lungs operated. He'd regained consciousness twice with his chest open only to lose it a heartbeat later. That was very likely the most horrifying experience Runt had ever lived through in his long, long life.
There came times, alone in those chambers, he had found himself on the brink. Broken down to his very essence, at peace as his consciousness swirled down the shitter. Runt hadn't been alone. There were others. Other animals… other beasts, They fell into whirling abyss with him, welcoming him. The pain was a long way away there. Then inevitably he'd be yanked out, brought forcibly back to his nightmare instead of a dream that Musicman would say was his mind's attempt to cope.
After that, a week straight of straps around his neck, chest and waist to hold him place while Zemo and his doctors sawed off his limbs. The pain. They weren't quick, clean cuts. Slow bone saws taking from him his arms and legs. If not for the gas chambers, it would have been his perfect chance to assassinate the bastard. Yet he'd barely been conscious during it. He lived a life of pain as his limbs were carted away, unable to find those precious seconds of solace before returning to reality as he had in the chambers. Eventually they had to gag him through the screams and to keep him from biting his tongue.
Finally, Zemo thought to give him a break. It'd been a few days since Baron had last come for him. His healing factor had finally been beaten or at least that's what the Baron assumed as the times between his limbs regenerating slowed to a crawl. He told himself he'd been through worse. He'd come out of the other side with Zemo's head on a stake. Gotta keep believing that. Gotta remember first in, only ones out. That's right James. No, Runt… Runt, not James Howlett, had to remember the Victor's Creed.
In those days, he'd noticed something else as he recovered. People weren't avoiding him. They were actively going missing. Not Samuel though. Samuel and his reluctant wife. It was slow. Over time. Samuel knew how. Why. Runt wasn't the brightest but no one could ever claim he was slow.
"I can get you out of here, James," Samuel mopped the sweat at the soldier's brow. "A man like you, you could survive on the countryside just fine once I get you through the fences."
Runt snatched that hand quicker than the elderly man could react. "How?"
The answer was simple. Runt felt something currently indescribable among his vocabulary pass through his fingers. Samuel was free of his grip without ever breaking the grasp. It tingled just a tad.
Here was Zemo's ghost.
Now
Just in case he was hallucinating, Tony doublechecked that AIDA was recording everything. What he was witnessing was too absurd to really be happening. There was this tiny girl, her dark hair wild, tears running in rivulets parallel to unusual facial scarring across her face. There was this girl, who had just tried to kill him, and there was a wolverine. A literal wolverine. Fur. Four paws. Everything. She knelt beside the creature, clad in black rags, sobbing.
The animal seemed to be breathing just fine. That didn't necessarily make Tony inclined to raise his face plate. The girl had claws. Bone claws but claws nevertheless. And she had tried to murder him by death from above.
"I'm, uh, sure he's fine."
The girl looked up, growling at him. Just in time for the animal to stir. It whimpered then nuzzled her with its nose. She giggled and picked the wolverine up, spinning in joy.
"Of course he's fine, took a blast from Iron Man at point blank range and survived without even a scar," She hugged her pet close. "He's invincible. Totally unstoppable!"
Well that was kinda his moniker but he was good with the girl saying what she wanted so long as it kept her from stabbing his eyes out. "So you've heard of me."
"My sisters and I have trained in four hundred sixty-three ways to kill you in and out of your various armors."
"Okay. Sisters. Good start. Are they here? Is there an adult I can speak to?"
Wow. Women learned that look early. The exact same expression Pepper offered him when he said something stupid without thinking. Which admittedly was often.
"Just Jonathan. The Hooded Man found me and brought me here. But there was someone else already living here with a cool magic staff that knocked him out then he escaped. I had to nurse hooded guy back to health except... when he recovered, he left me alone and that's when I found Jonathan locked in cage like some kind of animal."
That did not line up with the attack on his Expo… Unless it wasn't a distraction. Just coincidence.
"The Wolverine," he looked at the creature that gave him such a pitiful gaze that he honestly felt bad for blasting it. "The Hooded Man, where did he find you?"
"Dunno. I was in my cell alone. My sisters were gone. He tried to keep me from seeing the bodies though. Didn't matter. I could smell them. Did you know when you die you sh – "
Tony popped his visor. "Language. You're a little girl. You shouldn't be using those words." Wow. Was this his reality? Because this was some fantasy that no amount of pills mixed with alcohol had ever come up with. And should he care about telling a baby assassin to watch what she said?
The girl narrowed her eyes. "Y'know… up close, you look just like the mustache-man."
"The mustache-man?"
She nodded.
"And he is?"
In the tiny space between him and the doorframe, she slipped past. Shrugging, Tony made to follow. Ever wary though, he had his faceplate drop. The girl admitted to being trained to kill him. She'd already tried it once. Whoever thought it smart to train an adorable little waif as an assassin made a fatal mistake in thinking Iron Man could be phased by it.
Still, he wouldn't be telling anyone of the moment the façade slipped and he forgot he was the Invincible Iron Man. He'd be taking that to the grave. Considering the location, still viable if she lied about her sisters.
Samuel and Runt ghosted through the walls of Zemo's chambers. Immediately something was not right. He heard too many heartbeats, caught the smell of sweat from multiple men. And of course, gunpowder. They walked into a trap. An elaborate one willing to sacrifice lives considering all the dead bodies Runt had left behind on sentry duty.
The lights turned on. Zemo stood in his pristine uniform except with a ceremonial sword hooked to his belt. Hydra shocktroops flanked wall to wall to wall. Not the normal guards, the distinction easy to make with their heavy armor and green Hydra-head armbands. He clapped, the look of ultimate satisfaction on his face. Those brilliant white teeth mocking him.
"Mr. Howlett and Mr. Prydeman, my two astonishing Witchbreed. I wondered when you would lead me to my ghost. And you did."
Rifles were raised.
"James, my friend…"
"I'm sorry," and Runt truly was. He had died a hundred times, more, and this man had his back. Took care of him afterwards
"Let us see which one of you dies first. I know you shall be back in no time, Mr. Howlett but your friend… He cannot be allowed to escape and with his uncanny ability to phase through physical objects, I find myself unsure how to keep him imprisoned." Zemo plugged his ears. "I suppose I must settle for the corpse nevertheless."
Over the hail of bullets ripping their bodies apart, he heard another hail. Hail Hydra.
Runt woke, stripped, in the dark. His hands explored the close confines he found himself in. It wasn't his hands that realized it first. His nose smelled the gas, the fire. His body screamed in agony as the metal grid he lay upon heated up. An incineration chamber. They were going to burn him alive. Side by side with the personal shame he felt in causing Samuel's death, he now feared for his own.
They burned him at the stake once before. He'd barely escaped. Technology had advanced since then.
His flesh sizzled. Hair ignited. Though they had failed to brand him with the X of a Witchbreed, he now felt it over every inch of his back. So many crosses. All his to bear. The orange glow of the fire beneath him allowed him to see his approaching death. No. No.
The Victor's Creed. First in, only ones out.
The swirl and twirl began in his head and heart as he approached the door to the afterlife. A part of him welcomed becoming part of something bigger, something else. That part was Runt. A name that had dehumanized him and he'd been okay with it. Samuel had called him James though. And James wasn't ready to die.
A red mist clouded his vision despite the fact he could no longer see through his eyes. He pulled himself out of the drain sucking him into it, rage filling him over Samuel's death. He used that rage to burst out of the incineration chamber, the metal led clattering to the floor, aware that at the moment, he wasn't the same thing that went in.
Zemo and his shocktroops were too shaken to do anything. They were also less in number. The lid had killed one.
Snikt! Three claws punched through his knuckles, the usual pain nothing compared to what he felt now, his whole body blackened and blistering.
Runt's sprint reached its apex between the span of a heartbeat. The first half was his first step. The second, his claws stabbed straight through the goggles of the nearest troopers. Blood and gray matter oozed off the bones as he pulled himself free. A third reeled back. He attempted to raise his rifle. Runt's pivot caught him off guard as the return slash spilled out his innards, intestines uncurling and dropping to the stone floor.
Bullets started to fly by then. Runt dodged as best he could to avoid it – what he couldn't, courtesy of the Baron, he ignored through recent experience – his claws swiping the ankles of those nearest, cutting their Achilles tendons. When they fell, his claws opened them up from groin to chest. The survivors tried to split up, careful so that they wouldn't shoot each other. Runt wouldn't allow that. Only ones out. Only one out. He never stopped moving. Couldn't afford to as skin grew back. A trooper became his living shield. Runt kicked him into Zemo as he backflipped into another pair. Claws were deflected by their helmets. Yet as he landed, his roar of savage rage impaled them again and again and again when he punched them. More spilt blood. Overflowing, staining his bones and fists crimson.
Momentum propelled him to run over their backs when they fell. Arms spread out, he speared the guards clustered around Zemo. An upward swipe left an arm barely hanging on by its ligaments. The other was already dead while this one screamed. Runt tore out his throat with his bare teeth. Zemo's sword turned out to not be for show or ceremony, taking advantage of the proximity. A savage downstroke threatened to do what Runt's slash had done.
Wheeling around, bone-claws met sword, chips flying in the air. His natural ferocity was matched by the Baron's skill with the blade. An edge swept below as Runt did the unexpected and dropped the floor, the attack missing anything above his waist. First In, only ones out. He spun to his feet. Still spinning yet feeling stronger than ever while his healing completed itself, he found renewed vigor in their one on one duel.
More clashes. Blood spurted out of his shoulder. His claws claimed Zemo's face, three scratches opening it up. Nearly taking his nose.
Zemo applied more pressure until finally he cut through muscle and bone, his face damn near falling off. His heavy boot kicked Runt to the floor covered in blood and viscera. The sword stabbed through his heart.
"You will not be the only one left alive. Everyone will die here. My Sokovia will die. And you will be to blamed. I shall make sure of it, Mr. Howlett." He twisted the blade. "I will find the strength to survive this tragedy."
Blackness claimed Runt. As always when he came to in recent weeks, he found himself in blood. Not his by a longshot. His arm was gone yet another had taken its place, freshly pink with new skin. Zemo's words cut too close to home. The creed. Only one out.
Outside he saw the firing squads and those interned. He could see the mass graves already dug. His claws pierced his virginal knuckles. There was still some killing to be done. For Samuel as much as himself and the Commandos. He had to do it. No witnesses.
He had survived for as long as he could because of the Victor's Creed. Right now, with his renewed rage, he was invincible.
The faded picture showed a Howard Stark not much older than he had been in the slides. His father shook hands with a man who covered his own face with some sort of balaclava. Scientists surrounded them on all sides in a windowless, concrete room. Some of those scientists Tony recognized from their work on Project Rebirth. It didn't take a genius like him to figure out is was some sort of ploy. Secret place like this? They didn't have framed pictures on office desks. Still, based on the dust, it had been down here for a long time. Longer than the girl. Possibly longer than the mutant Wolverine had accidently released. The glass was cracked and the actual photo stained with blood. Someone had spent way too much energy focusing their hatred on the picture, burning it into their mind.
The mutant with the staff? Possibly. Girl didn't know and Tony didn't speak wolverine.
"I saw that picture on the beast's desk back at my facility," the girl interjected as Tony's rising anger threatened to ruin the picture and frame more.
"We talking Jonathan style beast or something else?"
"Like Beauty and the Beast. He was very big just like Beast in the cartoon. And super hairy. He didn't shed a lot. I always wondered why. Plus, he was like start of the movie Beast. Scary and rawr." Jonathan let out his own growl. "Maybe if he found his Belle, he'd have been nicer to us."
Tony had zero clue had to console kids. Let alone one obviously engineered by some clandestine organization. His mind, and mouth, focused on the one thing that he was dying to know now that she had uttered the words.
"They let Mini Assassins watch Disney movies?"
"No. It was here. This is a secret facility, not some home to savages. There's a VHS copy and I watch it all the time with Jonathan. Gaston had my favorite song. I want to grow up to be big like him except y'know, without the dying. I want people singing how great I am." She looked up at him with those scars on her cheeks shining in the glow of his arc reactor. "Jonathan too. Do you wanna watch with us? There's some popcorn in storage that can be heated up."
"Not right now but I think I have a better movie back home that you'd love."
"Oooh. What's it called? Maybe I've seen it."
"Mulan. It'll teach you the important lesson on how to get down to business to beat the Huns."
Jonathan stretched in the girl's arms. That little sucker must be nearly fifty pounds and she hadn't put him down once.
"I don't know… I'm supposed to wait for the dying guy in the hood."
"Believe me," Tony's shoulder ached, "he knows where I live."
"Still, I mean, you haven't even asked my name."
"She is correct, Mr. Stark. You did not ask her name and small children should not go with strangers."
"Whose side are you on?" he muttered, getting a strange look from girl and animal alike. "I'm Tony. What's your name?"
"X23_4GAB." Her smile was utterly innocent from ear to ear showing pearly white teeth. "I'm just messin' with ya. You can call me Gabby."