Chapter 151: Wolverine's Shock
Logan arrived at a run and stopped.
Storm and Cannonball were on the ground. He crossed to them immediately, checked them both, got his hands under Storm's shoulders. Alive. Badly hurt, but alive.
He looked up.
Twenty meters away, Ethan Cross and the Dark Phoenix were doing something to the air between them — chaos magic and Phoenix fire, two forces that seemed to generate their own weather, the space around them crackling and shifting. The shockwaves coming off each exchange were enough that Logan had to brace.
That's him, Logan thought. The Lord of Hell's Kitchen.
He looked around for backup. Found none.
He was trying to calculate whether charging in was worth anything when a voice came from somewhere behind his left shoulder.
"Another round?"
Logan turned.
Wade was horizontal on a sofa.
He was holding an ice-cold can of cola. He looked like a man at a Sunday barbecue who had correctly identified the best chair.
Logan's cigarette fell out of his mouth.
On the same sofa — a silver-haired young man and a green-haired woman, also with colas, also demonstrating the posture of people who had nowhere better to be. In front of them, a red-haired woman was delivering what appeared to be a thorough critique of their combat performance, pausing occasionally to check the aerial situation overhead.
Logan's brain produced several questions simultaneously.
What.
Why are they like this.
Where did the sofa come from.
Why does the sofa have cushions.
He looked at his side. Storm and Cannonball — injuries, blood, clearly through something serious.
He looked at their side. Slightly dirty clothes. No other evidence of a fight.
He dragged Storm and Cannonball over and set them down near the sofa, which felt insane, but there was nowhere else to put them.
"Are you going to help him?" Logan asked.
Nobody answered immediately. Wanda kept talking at Pietro and Lorna. Pietro and Lorna kept drinking their colas with the studied innocence of people who knew they were being talked at and had made peace with it.
Wade finally looked up from his can. "It's Ethan. If he can't handle it, we wait to die. Either way, watching is the correct move." He produced a cola from somewhere and tossed it to Logan. "Sit down."
Logan did not sit down.
He looked at the fight. He looked at the sofa. He looked at the fight again.
He went in.
The shockwave from the nearest exchange hit him before he'd covered half the distance and threw him back approximately eight meters. He landed in a roll that would have badly injured a normal person and came up with new opinions about the ambient force in that vicinity.
Wade stood up. "Oh, right. I was going to mention — their fight is outside what we can contribute to." He looked down at Logan. "That's not an insult. It's just physics." He sat back down. "Cola?"
Logan sat up.
He thought about this.
He accepted the cola.
He sat — not on the sofa, but near it, which was a concession he was willing to make — and watched the sky above Hell's Kitchen go crimson and white in alternating waves, and tried to recalibrate what he understood about the power levels present in this neighborhood tonight.
He was still working on that when Wade said: "Those two friends of yours. You want them fixed?"
Logan looked at Storm. At Cannonball. Back at Wade.
"You can do that."
"I can do that."
"How."
Wade held up the Horse Talisman with the casual confidence of a man displaying a coupon. "Ancient artifact. Heals things. Very useful. Very expensive — normally a hundred thousand per person, but you and I had drinks together, so I'm doing buy one get one."
Logan stared at him.
"I don't have a hundred thousand dollars."
Wade's enthusiasm dropped several degrees.
"How much do you have."
"On me? Less than a hundred."
This information seemed to genuinely affect Wade. He looked at the sky. He looked at Storm. He looked back at Logan. He appeared to be conducting an internal negotiation.
"We'll figure out a payment plan," he said finally, with the pained generosity of someone doing something against their better financial judgment. "But you owe me."
The negotiation continued.
Elsewhere above Hell's Kitchen, Magneto was covering ground as fast as his magnetic field would carry two people, which was faster than most things but not as fast as he wanted.
"Can you go any faster?" Xavier said.
"My power is magnetism. Not flight. I'm working with what I have."
"Can you sense anything from up here?"
"No. You?"
Xavier's expression tightened. "I know Ethan arrived at the scene. After that — nothing. Both of them are beyond what I can read at this range."
Magneto processed that.
He slowed down slightly.
Xavier noticed immediately. "What are you doing?"
"Adjusting our pace."
"We need to get there—"
"Ethan is there," Magneto said. "That means it's handled." He said it with the flat certainty of someone who had watched the evening's events and arrived at a conclusion. "We arrive when we arrive."
Xavier looked at him with open bafflement.
"You've known this man for — how long have you known him?"
"Long enough to have an accurate assessment."
"He's fighting an uncontrolled Phoenix Force."
"Yes."
"And you're slowing down."
"Marginally."
Xavier stared at him. Magneto stared at the horizon. The distance between them and the fight continued to close, at the pace Magneto had decided was appropriate.
Xavier could not understand the calm. He knew what Jean looked like uncontrolled. He had seen it before. He had seen what it did.
Ethan Cross had been in Hell's Kitchen for — what, a year? Two years? He had a restaurant and a school and a large collection of loyal people and a title that sounded like a crime novel. Xavier had not, before tonight, considered him a serious factor in any calculation involving the Phoenix Force.
He was reconsidering.
The skyline ahead pulsed crimson. Then white. Then went quiet.
Magneto's pace did not change.
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you