The battlefield lay in ruin. Smoke curled from the shattered ground. Wreckage of cars and torn power lines crackled with dying electricity. Seraphina groaned from a collapsed structure, Rick buried under mangled debris. The Professor clutched his ribs, eyes sharp but breath ragged.
But Barry… Barry was still standing. Bloodied. Beaten. Barely able to move. But standing. His breath came in heavy, animalistic huffs, claws scraping against the fractured pavement. His golden eyes burned not with defeat, but defiance.
The Alben man tilted his head, almost amused. "Still?" His voice was like steel on stone—smooth, cold, unyielding.
Barry snarled. Then he let go. A monstrous crack echoed through the air as his body began to change. Flesh tore.Bones stretched.Muscles contorted.
His frame expanded, doubling, tripling in size, his skin ripping apart to reveal something primal beneath.A towering beast of raw muscle, jagged fur, and golden fury.
Barry let out a roar that split the sky. Windows shattered. The ground quaked beneath him. His claws gleamed like obsidian blades, and when his glowing eyes locked onto the Alben man, there was no mistaking the message.
The Alben man… smiled. "Ah… there you are."
And with a flick of his fingers—metal shrieked as the ruins of the power plant answered his call. Wires and beams twisted into serpentine chains, thick as iron trees, snapping toward Barry with terrifying speed.
Barry lunged, too late. The chains struck like a coiled beast, wrapping around his limbs, locking onto his neck. The force yanked him mid-air, slamming him into the ground with a bone-rattling crash. BOOM!
The impact sent a shockwave across the battlefield, dust and debris spiraling into the sky. Barry thrashed, his enormous form straining against the bindings, muscles bulging, but the chains only tightened.
The Alben man approached, slow, deliberate. His silver eyes shone with something almost akin to admiration. "Magnificent."
He raised a hand—And the chains surged, pulling tighter, crushing Barry's limbs against the ground. "But still… just a beast."
Barry lay bound, his monstrous form shackled by metal that slithered and constricted like living serpents. The Alben man stood above him, the architect of his imprisonment, his silver eyes gleaming with something far colder than amusement—certainty.
Then, tension shattered in an instant. A silver flash tore through the smoke, a force unseen yet undeniable, hurtling toward the Alben man with the speed of vengeance itself. The very air seemed to ripple in its wake, and then it struck. The impact sent shockwaves rolling outward, the force splitting the ground beneath his feet.
Seraphina descended like a comet, her silver hair whipping in the wind, her body encased in a shell of shimmering energy. What had been a protective barrier was now a weapon, forged through sheer will. She struck again, a pulse of kinetic force radiating from her palm, sending debris soaring into the air. But the Alben man was already gone.
He moved like a shadow given form, weaving through the destruction with effortless precision, untouched by the chaos unfolding around him. He landed atop a fractured beam, barely disturbed, watching as the dust settled from Seraphina's failed strike. Before she could react, another figure launched into motion.
Rick had shed his humanity. His wiry frame had been replaced with an unbreakable, glistening body of living diamond. His veins pulsed with energy, glowing beneath the crystalline surface of his skin. He leaped, the sheer force of his movement fracturing the ground beneath him, his entire body a weapon sharpened by momentum.
The first blow missed. The second came closer. But Rick was not a mere brawler. He adjusted mid-motion, shifting his weight in an instant, and his knee struck true.
The force of impact was an earthquake in itself. The Alben man was sent hurtling through the air, crashing through the remains of a demolished transformer. Sparks erupted as the structure collapsed around him, burying him beneath a heap of twisted metal.
Steel groaned as the Alben man rose, brushing away the dust that clung to his coat. A thin trickle of blood ran down the corner of his lips, but he hardly seemed to notice. His silver eyes, cold and calculating, flickered with something new—acknowledgment.
The atmosphere changed. A pulse of energy radiated outward, thickening the air with unseen weight. The battlefield, once a domain of ruin and combat, became something else entirely.
The next, Rick's body recoiled as a blackened metal spike erupted through his crystalline torso. A flash of light. A detonation.
Rick was sent hurtling backward, the sheer force of the explosion sending him crashing into a concrete pillar. The impact sent fissures webbing through the structure, his diamond-clad form motionless in the aftermath.
Seraphina stood frozen for half a second before she surged forward, a brilliant burst of silver energy igniting around her. But before she could reach him, before she could do anything—the chains tightened.
The Wolf King still lay bound, his golden eyes blazing with unrelenting fury. The metal constricted further, burning into his skin, but it did nothing to quell the storm building within.
The world around was drowning in chaos—flames, shattered steel, bodies colliding in a violent dance of power and desperation. The very air vibrated with the echoes of battle, a cacophony of destruction that threatened to spiral beyond control. Professor stood amidst the ruin, his eyes narrowing as he reached out—not with his hands, but with his mind.
Thoughts were threads in a vast, tangled web. He could feel them, unraveling, colliding, overlapping—Seraphina's calculated precision, Rick's defiant pain, Barry's primal fury. And beyond them, the Alben man—a storm of sharp, unyielding intellect cloaked in the cold void of absolute certainty. He reached deeper.
His power surged forward, an unseen force slicing through the mental currents of the battlefield, seeking to sever the Alben man's control at its root. If he could slip into his mind, he could stop this. He could end this.
And then—Nothing. A wall. Not a shield, not resistance—something far worse. It was absence. Like plunging into a void where thought did not exist. No memories, no emotions, no consciousness to invade. It was an impossibility, a paradox. The Alben man was right there, but his mind was—gone.
Professor recoiled, his breath hitching. Someone was stopping him. Someone else was here. His gaze swept the battlefield, scanning through smoke and ruin, searching—searching—There.
A silhouettes stood atop the crumbling tower of the power plant, draped in a cloak that bled into the night. The figures was motionless, yet the air around them seemed to ripple, bending like reality itself struggled to contain their presence.
Through the thick haze of smoke and the flickering glow of fires, the cloaked figures moved. Not with urgency, nor hesitation, but with a presence that demanded the world itself take notice. Then, they descended.
From the tower's edge, the figures leaped—one by one—each landing with effortless grace, their weight barely disturbing the cracked earth below. The very air around them shifted, thick with something unspoken, something ancient.
As they stepped forward, the leader emerged from the center, the one who had cast the impenetrable void upon Professor's mind. He was tall, draped in a long coat with intricate silver embroidery woven like sigils of forgotten power. His face, pale and sharp, was framed by jet-black hair, and his eyes—soulless pits of deep obsidian—held nothing but cold calculation.
A smirk played at his lips as if amused by the sheer audacity of those who stood against him. "I am Vaelith" the man spoke, his voice smooth yet weighty, laced with the undeniable authority of one who knew he couldnotbetouched.
It was him. The one who had severed the Professor's reach. The one who had turned the battlefield into a place of deafening silence for all who relied on their minds as weapons.
Then, to his right, another figure stepped forward, exuding a raw, primal energy. His body twisted and shifted with every breath, scales rippling beneath his skin like living armor, his shoulders broad and lined with ridges, his fingers ending in obsidian talons. His mouth, even in human form, housed fangs that gleamed beneath the dim light. "I am Rhazaan" he rumbled, voice deep, guttural, barely restrained. "The Dragonborn."
Even as he stood still, his power radiated—heat waves distorted the air around him, and the scent of molten rock clung to his very presence.
Then, the last of them stepped forward. The one who was wrong. Not human. Not entirely. His form was draped in flowing robes, but beneath them, his skin was unnatural—midnight blue with veins of glowing crimson pulsating beneath the surface. Two curved horns crowned his head, his elongated fingers twitching, claws glistening under the firelight. But it was his eyes—pupil-less, endless voids—that sent a chill through the battlefield.
"I am Malak" his voice slithered through the air, layered and inhuman, as if spoken by more than one being at once. "The Cambion."
He was something born of darkness, something that should not walk among men. The three stood before them now, unmoving, unwavering. They had not come in haste, nor anger. They had come as a proclamation—of power, of dominion, of certainty.
The battlefield stood still for a fleeting moment, the weight of the three figures pressing upon the air like an unbreakable vice. But then, as if time itself bent to his will, the Alben man stepped forward.
The metal around him trembled. The twisted wreckage of cars, collapsed power lines, and shattered steel beams all shuddered in his presence, drawn toward him like iron filings to a lodestone. With a slow, deliberate motion, he lifted his hand, and the debris responded—a swirling storm of metallic ruin orbiting him like a silent tempest waiting to be unleashed. He exhaled, a sound of amusement.
"And I am Magnar" he declared, his voice like the grinding of gears, his golden eyes gleaming with an unnatural light. "The Titan of Steel."
And then, in unison, the four of them turned to face Barry, Seraphina, Rick, and the Professor—wounded, breathless, yet still standing.
The air grew thick with something unspeakable, an unseen force that carried the weight of their collective power.
Together, they spoke, their voices merging into a singular, ominous proclamation: "And wearetheBrotherhoodofMutants"