"Feeling it yet? The death?" He walked forward slowly. Confident. "You always were weak, Zero. No matter how much we trained you. No matter how many times we broke you down and rebuilt you." Another step. "You know what your problem is?"
The coils shot forward.
I dodged left. They corrected mid-flight, he was controlling them. Reading and anticipating my reactions.
One coil caught my leg.
Pain exploded up my thigh as the carbonadium wrapped around it, squeezing. I felt bone flex. Nearly crack.
The second coil came for my throat.
Fifteen strings deployed in a geometric web pattern. The coil hit them and—didn't cut through. Because I wasn't trying to sever the carbonadium. I was creating a net. Distributing the force across multiple connection points.
The coil stopped. Inches from my neck.
Rossovich's eyes widened. Surprised.
I pulled.
Not on his coils. On him. Thirty strings had been attaching to his body during the entire fight, invisible filaments connecting to his suit, his implants, his exposed skin. Now they all pulled at once, from different vectors.
His balance broke. He stumbled forward.
I twisted my caught leg against the coil's grip. More pain. Didn't matter. Used the rotation to add torque to my strings. Rossovich crashed face-first into the wall.
The coil around my leg loosened. I yanked free, skin tearing. Ignored it. Sent ten strings toward his eyes.
He raised his arm. The strings wrapped around his forearm instead. Not my target. I pulled myself toward him, using the strings like a grappling line.
His other coil swept horizontally. Trying to bisect me.
I released the pull strings. Dropped flat. The coil passed overhead, close enough to feel the displaced air. Rolled left. More strings deploying. These ones aimed at the joints where the carbonadium housings met flesh.
If I couldn't cut the metal, I'd cut around it.
The strings dug in. Drew blood. Rossovich roared—actual pain this time—and both coils retracted, wrapping defensively around his torso.
Three seconds. That's all I had.
I ran forward. Straight at him. Every string I had left forming into a single braided cable, thick as my wrist, sharp as razorwire.
Rossovich's eyes tracked me. He started to unwrap the coils.
Too slow.
I jumped. The string cable led the way. Aimed at his throat.
His hand caught me mid-air. Fingers wrapped completely around my ribcage. Squeezing. I felt ribs crack.
"Nice try." His breath smelled like decay. Death spores concentrated this close. My vision was already graying at the edges.
But my string was already around his neck.
We looked at each other. His hand crushing my chest. My string cutting into his throat. Stalemate.
"You don't have the strength," he whispered. "Even with your strings. I've survived worse than this."
Probably true. My arms were already shaking. Breath coming in shallow gasps. Broken ribs. Spore poisoning. Blood loss.
Four probability paths forward. Three ended with my death.
The fourth...
My free hand went to my chest. To the small pocket on the tactical suit they'd given me years ago. Inside: a single needle. Emergency adrenaline. For when they needed me functional beyond normal limits.
I'd been saving it. Fifteen years of saving it. Hiding it from every inspection. Every search. A small rebellion. A secret insurance.
I stabbed it into my thigh. Pushed the plunger.
The effect was immediate. Chemical clarity. Pain receptors shutting down. Strength flooding back into muscles that had been failing.
Rossovich's expression changed. Realization.
I pulled the string.
It cut deep. Through skin. Through muscle. Through the augmented tissue that had kept him alive for decades.
Blood sprayed.
His grip loosened.
I pulled harder.
The string cut deeper.
He tried to speak. Nothing came out but wet gurgling. His coils lashed out wildly, destroying walls, ceiling, everything. Aiming at nothing. Just death throes.
I held on. Kept pulling.
His knees hit the ground. The coils retracted a final time, sliding back into their housings with a sick wet sound.
His eyes found mine. Surprise. Respect? No. Just shock that the weapon had killed its master.
Then nothing. Empty. Dead.
He toppled forward.
I stepped aside. Let him fall.
The adrenaline was already wearing off. I could feel it—the crash coming. But not yet. Not quite yet.
I looked down at the body. Fifteen years of conditioning said to feel nothing. To process this as just another mission complete.
But something else stirred. Something they'd tried to train out of me but never quite managed.
Not satisfaction. Not triumph.
Just... acknowledgment. A chapter closed.
Then I saw it. His hand, still twitching in death, had knocked something loose from his belt. A small vial. Broken now, contents spilled across the floor. Clear liquid evaporating rapidly in the air.
Some of it had splashed onto my skin.
I stared at it. Ran probability calculations. Threat assessment.
Unknown substance. Unknown purpose. Unknown effects.
The word echoed in my mind with uncomfortable weight.
But I was already contaminated. Death spores. Internal bleeding. Compound fractures. The adrenaline was keeping me conscious but I had minutes, maybe less.
The Mission priority was now to escape. Find an exit and reassess later.
I turned away from Rossovich's body and followed the corridor deeper into the facility.
The emergency lights painted everything red. Ironically appropriate.
The destruction got worse the farther I went.
Bodies in the hallway. Facility personnel. Not killed cleanly like the guards I'd dispatched. These were torn apart. Shredded. Walls painted with blood and worse.
I stepped over a scientist I vaguely recognized. He'd run cognitive tests on me. Tuesdays and Thursdays. His face was gone now. Claws had done this. Two parallel marks. Two sets.
X-23.
Someone had turned their living weapon loose on the facility itself.
A kind of scorched earth policy.
I kept walking. Following the trail of carnage. A blood-soaked path leading deeper into Sector C.
My vision was swimming due to blood loss and Omega Red's death factor. The adrenaline crash hitting hard. I used strings to stitch together my wounds. Grotesque, but functional.
The corridor opened into a larger chamber. The clone development lab. I'd been here before. Observation only. They'd never explained what the pods were for.
Now the pods were destroyed. Shattered glass and amniotic fluid pooling on the floor. Small bodies floating in the wreckage. Half-formed. Failed experiments.
I stepped through the carnage.
Then I saw her.
Dr. Sarah Kinney. On the floor. Lab coat soaked red. Her chest torn open. Same double-slash pattern.
Her eyes were still open. Already glazing. Dead maybe two minutes.
I'd seen her before. She'd administered some of my medical evaluations. Professional. Efficient. Not cruel. That was rare here.
Now she was just another body.
I moved to step past her.
Then I saw the second figure.
X-23 was kneeling ten feet away. Back to me.
Her claws were out. Both hands. Both feet. Adamantium gleaming wet in the red emergency lights.
Blood covered her. Head to toe. Matted in her dark hair. Dripping from her fingers.
She was making a sound. Quiet and rhythmic.
She was crying.
Her shoulders shook with silent sobs that wracked her whole body.
I stopped.
She must have gone on a rampage.
And ended up killing the only person in this place with some form of a conscious.