[A/N]: Alright, you absolute legends š¤Æš„ you really went and hit 250 Power Stones So here's your First Bonus chapterš„ Next up, let's shoot for 500 Power Stones and drop two MORE bonus chapters. You know the drill- comment, share and hype it up šāØ
"Wonderful. Truly wonderful. I was right to pursue the Braddock bloodline, but you..." Her smile widened. "You're not ready yet, boy. Too raw and too unrefined. You must ripen. Mature. Age like fine wine before I partake. It's not time. Not yet. But soon. Oh yes, very soon."
She clapped her hands once.
A portal tore itself open behind her. Similar to the dimensional gateway she'd used before, but this was darker. Wrong. The edges dripped with black ichor that hissed and steamed where it touched the ground, eating through asphalt like acid.
Two figures stepped through.
Brian Braddock, Captain Britain himself, emerged first. The Sword of Might hung loose in his grip, point dragging on the ground. His armor, once pristine, was now covered in dark symbols that writhed and shifted across the metal surface. Runes that predated language. Sigils that human eyes weren't meant to see as his cape hung in tatters.
Jamie Braddock followed. His usual manic energy, that chaotic genius that bent reality like taffy, was gone. Replaced with eerie stillness. His clothes were disheveled. His hair matted. His posture was wrong. Bent and Broken.
Both moved with mechanical awkwardness. Their gait was identical and Wrong in the way that dolls walking would be wrong. Like puppets with most of their strings cut, operated by someone who didn't quite understand how humans moved.
Betsy's breath caught in her throat.
Finally. Finally seeing her brothers after hours of searching.
"Brian? Jamie?"
She ran toward them. Relief and joy overwhelmed everything else. Tactical thinking evaporated. Training forgotten. They were here and alive. That was all that mattered.
Then she saw their eyes.
There were no irises nor any pupils. Just solid crimson that glowed with unnatural light. The red of arterial blood. And on their foreheads, carved into the skin itself, inverted pentagrams leaked black fluid that ran down their faces in thin rivulets.
Betsy stumbled as her legs went weak. The joy died in her chest, replaced by ice-cold horror.
"What... what have you..."
Her voice wouldn't work properly. The words stuck in her throat.
Brian moved.
The Sword of Might came up in a horizontal slash. Faster than Betsy could track. Faster than she could process. It would cleave her in half. Split her from shoulder to hip.
But a shield of pure white light materialized between them.
The sword struck with a sound like a bell being rung in a cathedral. Vibrations echoed outward, rippling through the air in visible waves. The shield held, but hairline fractures spread across its surface like spider webs.
Betsy found herself behind Jay. She hadn't seen him move. Hadn't registered anything except Brian trying to kill her. Her own brother. The man who'd protected her their entire lives. Who'd taught her to fight. Who'd held her when their parents died.
Trying to murder her with dead eyes like a possessed blade.
"Oi, you Bro-Con!" Jay's voice was flat. Cold as winter in Siberia. "Wake up. Look at their eyes. Look at the marks on their foreheads. They're controlled, obviously. Now get your head in the bloody game before one of them takes it off your shoulders."
The shield dissipated into motes of light.
Jay's right hand moved. Darkness coalesced from the shadows between cars, from the spaces under corpses, from everywhere light didn't reach. It formed a sword of pure Darkforce.
He raised it toward Selene.
A test to check her depth.
Dark energy carved through the air, leaving a trail of absolute black in its wake. The slash moved fast enough to create a vacuum in its path.
Jamie's hands moved. Red strings materialized around his arms, dozens of them, glowing with reality-warping power that made the air shimmer and distort. He thrust both hands forward. The strings shot into the ground.
The pavement split and peeled back like skin. And underneath, instead of concrete foundation and dirt, there was flesh. Pink and wet and pulsing as a massive maw erupted upward from the impossible wound. Hundreds of teeth in concentric circles like a lamprey's mouth, each one the size of a human hand. The tongue was covered in suckers that pulsed with their own heartbeat. The entire thing reeked of stomach acid and decay.
The maw was easily twenty feet wide. It rose up, blocking Jay's attack completely.
The darkness slash flew straight into its gullet.
The maw devoured the attack completely. Swallowed it whole as it's teeth gnashed.
Then exploded from the inside. Jay's attack detonated in the creature's stomach. The teeth shattered, spraying enamel shrapnel in all directions. The tongue dissolved into chunky soup. The entire construct collapsed into nothingness, folding back into the pavement, which sealed itself as though nothing had happened.
Jay's attack had been neutralized. But only barely, the maw had been destroyed in the process.
Selene stood untouched behind the dissipating gore. She reached out, patting Jamie's head like rewarding a well-trained dog. "Good boy. Such a good, obedient boy. You did exactly as I taught you." Her fingers trailed through his hair. The gesture was possessive. Intimate. Wrong in a way that made the stomach turn. "You've learned so well. Both of you have. Such eager students once I showed you the proper... incentives."
Betsy's telepathy flared. The butterfly mark spread further across her face, wings extending down her cheek, across her jaw. Purple energy crackled around her fists, sparking and hissing. "What have you done to my brothers, you evil bitch?"
"You poor, stupid child." Selene's voice dripped false sympathy. Maternal warmth coating poison. "Don't be like this. You'll understand soon. When you join them. When I remake you the way I've remade them. The Braddock bloodline is too special to waste. Too powerful to leave untapped. Even you, little butterfly. Even trapped in that stolen Asian flesh, you have potential." Her smile widened, showing too many teeth. "I'll make use of every inch of you. Just like I did with your brothers."
Blue energy rippled.
Jay vanished and reappeared beside Domino in the space between heartbeats. In his hands, wrapped in sealed cloth stained with age and handling, was a katana. The bindings were old, frayed at the edges. He began unwrapping them with careful precision. Each layer of cloth that fell away released a faint hum. A vibration that set Selen's teeth on edge.
Domino changed magazines, rounds clinked as they loaded. She didn't look at Jay and only kept her eyes on Selene and the Braddock brothers. "A'right, I'll ask. Why these people specifically? You've got magic older than civilization. Mutant powers that make most of us look like parlor tricks. You've been alive for millennia. Why now? Why the Braddocks? What makes them worth this kind of effort?"
Selene's playful expression vanished. Wiped away like makeup.
"The tides have shifted, girl. The balance has broken." Her voice carried the weight of centuries. Of watching empires rise and fall. Of outliving so called gods. "A mortal man now possesses the power to rewrite fundamental laws of existence itself. To deny death. To trap deities. To reshape reality according to his will."
Her gaze locked onto Jay. He'd just finished unwrapping the Muramasa blade. The cursed katana gleamed dully in the afternoon light. The metal was dark and Hungry.
"Do you understand what that means? What kind of attention that brings? When one human can do what gods cannot?" Selene took a step backwards as she could feel an erriness from this blade. The few remaining demons parted for her automatically. Instinctively. "Ancient powers are moving. Entities that have slept since before your ancestors learned to make fire. They're waking up. Looking for champions and weapons. Making others like you, choose. Join them, submit to them. Or die before they become a threat."
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