Marvel: Death Dealer

The Broodlings poured down toward the rooftop, ignoring every person in the vicinity. They descended like a living avalanche of terrorizing maws, terrifying enough to make the chatty Felicia stare in silence.

“Holy nightmare fuel,” Felicia whispered. “I’m definitely sleeping in Mom’s room tonight.”

Illyana raised her left hand, pointing her palm at the Broodlings. “Felicia, there won’t be a better time to use Death’s blessing.”

Felicia rose to her feet, then a tide of dark aura coiled around her as she drew on the cosmic power Death had fed into her soul.

“Curse of Limbo! Go!”

Chains like a living serpent shot out from the disc portals and lashed across the leading wave, ensnaring over fifty Broodlings in one go. Felicia saw the opportunity and dashed forward, dissolving into a streaking black blur. Every bound, helpless insect in Limbo’s grip was annihilated in the span of a heartbeat, torn apart before they could so much as shriek.

Felicia, meanwhile, caught one Broodling’s head between her thighs, her legs scissoring around its neck. The creature whipped its scythe-limbs up to gut her, but his head was ripped clean off before he could bring down his limbs.

The Brood couldn’t compete with her speed.

Illyana let out a whistle and glanced up. “Mistress Death, are you looking for more sisters?”

“No.”

“You will, one day.” Unbothered by the instant rejection, she turned to Psylocke. “Retreat if your weapons break. I’d rather lose a thousand strangers than one of our own.”

That was the law Illyana had been forged under, down in the fires of Hell, down in ever-changing universes. Psylocke, who carried the same cold logic in her heart, couldn’t fault Illyana for it.

Although she hadn’t joined the battle, the Broodlings wouldn’t allow her to sit on the sidelines. A cluster broke off and came screaming for her, their jaws yawning wide, while a second cluster provided covering fire with firearms.

Psylocke gripped the katana’s hilt and performed a fluid iaijutsu draw-slash. The five Broodling hung frozen in the air for a moment, halfway in the motion of striking at her, then their bodies separated in two equal halves with a shower of blood and fell down on the street.

A clean multikill.

But she wasn’t satisfied. The Broodlings’ strange, corrosive blood had already eaten away a startling amount of her edge. She couldn’t use her execution techniques with these swords. She had to be precise and strike the weak points.

A pair of luminous, butterfly-shaped wings emerged from her back as she wove through the swarm that was hot and ready to devour her. Literally. She aimed for the weak points, which was the vulnerable seam where each Broodling’s neck joined its skull. Every slash beheaded one Broodling. A few limbs struck her but nothing that would hinder her focus.

Throughout the exchanges, she gained a new understanding of the Broodlings. Their tentacle-limbs, the same ones gripping firearms, could strike from unexpected angles. Their barbed stingers were reserved for when they got ahold of their victims in their multiple limbs. She was quite certain the stingers were loaded with venom or some paralytic. They also had sharp teeth that could easily rip off a human’s skull.

Individually, they were no real threat to a mutant of her caliber. But a horde of them, coordinated by a single hive-mind, could overwhelm her. After all, she felt pain and exhaustion. Her psychic abilities also consumed a lot of energy, requiring far more sustenance than a normal adult.

These hordes shared none of her weaknesses.

They were perfect soldiers.

Off to her side, Felicia was carving through the swarm like a hot knife through butter. With Death’s powers, Felicia probably negated most of Psylocke’s weaknesses. Psylocke felt an unwelcome flicker of something she rarely allowed herself to feel. She couldn’t stop herself from envying that unstoppable power.

She still remembered her first meeting with Felicia. The woman who, not so long ago, had cowered under Psylocke’s gaze, cowered before Emma’s telepathic powers. Emma had strong-armed Felicia into cooperating back then; she had been a complete stranger to the world of powers and mutants, in over her head and terrified. But now, wreathed in the power of Death, she could put Psylocke down without breaking a sweat. The powerful blessing from Death would make any warrior burn with jealousy.

Somehow, even these emotions fueled her strength, thanks to her Heart State, the opposite ability of the Void State.

Psylocke drove her blade into a Broodling’s neck. A violent jerk from the dying creature snapped the katana in half. Cursing inwardly, she retreated with her wings, a swarm of Broodlings chasing closely behind to avenge their fallen brethren.

She glanced at Illyana, who had summoned a golden barrier to protect herself. The Broodlings were stuck to the barrier, biting and hitting it in hopes of getting to Illyana. The barrier had already cracked at many places.

CRACK! The barrier shattered into a thousand fragments. Before the Broodlings got to her, Illyana raised her Soulsword skyward and brought it crashing down.

“Open.”

A massive rift unfurled in the sky above her, reminiscent of her stepping discs but a dozen times bigger. From the churning rift, an army of demons came marching out, howling as though declaring war on everyone. Limbo’s demons had joined the battle on her command.

“In the name of your Queen!” Illyana roared, casually bisecting a Broodling with a backhand sweep of her blade. “Obliterate these worms!”

Psylocke had always believed violence was merely a tool. A means to an end. It wasn’t to be savored or taken joy in. And yet, somehow, that roar set her blood on fire, stirring something primal inside her.

She drew the third katana from her hip and launched herself back into the horde.

***

Laura loved her new life and everything about it. But if someone held her down and made her name the only thing she missed from the old, bloody days, it would be what she was currently doing.

Teaming up with Natasha.

The redhead was, by default, the picture of cool composure. A calculating assassin who played her cards at the right time to fulfill her goals. But when she removed that leash in her Ghost Rider form, when the Spirit of Vengeance came roaring to the surface, she was the embodiment of silent wrath. She could become the scariest woman on this planet.

Fighting alongside this version of Natasha made Laura’s blood boil—she was having fun. The symbiote draped over her skin purred with bloodlust—it was having fun. Natasha drove the fiery bike around, burning Broodlings left and right—she was having fun. The Spirit of Vengeance, which was fused with Natasha, had the time of its unholy, eternal existence as it got to cut loose and go all out—it was certainly having fun.

The Brood, however, were falling like flies—they were not having fun.

Laura’s claws, her symbiote, and Natasha’s Hellfire made a nightmare scenario for the Brood. They were like a meat grinder the Broodlings fed themselves into by the dozens.

“They just keep coming!” Laura yelled, shaking blood off her right claws. “How many of these ships are there?”

“You’re asking the wrong girl.” Natasha slammed the brakes and the bike screamed into a tight drift, stopping sideways right in front of Laura. She looked up. “Look, they brought out their big guns.”

Laura saw a group of four Broodlings hovering together, all working their tentacle-limbs together to hold a massive, sleek-barreled gun. It looked like it belonged on a spaceship rather than in the middle of New York. More groups peeled out of the swarm, each one hauling an identical cannon gun, until there were a dozen guns in the sky.

They only had two targets.

“Nat, I’ve got a bad feeling about those.”

Natasha kickstarted the bike, the engine roaring to life. “Hop on. We’re flying high.”

Laura vaulted onto the back without hesitation as Natasha shot forward, leaning hard left and right to weave between energy blasts. Many of them missed Laura by inches.

But Natasha couldn’t dodge everything. One of the stray beams caught Laura. She threw up her claws on instinct to block it, but suddenly found herself standing in a dark room, drenched in blood from head to toe. And lying at her feet, broken and lifeless, was the corpse of her mother.

“You killed your mother?!”

She spun at the familiar voice, which had no warmth. Dante stood in the doorway, his face twisted with a disgust she had never, ever seen him wear toward her.

“Get out. Who knows when you snap and kill me too?”

Laura tried to speak, tried to justify that it wasn’t her, it was them, they made her do this. But not a single word came out of her mouth. When she didn’t move, he grabbed her wrist and dragged her out no matter how much she clawed him.

“Don’t come back.”

He threw her out and slammed the door in her face. She was left on the ground, shaking on the cold, empty street.

As abruptly as she had arrived here, she was back in the whipping wind, sitting behind Natasha.

She sucked in a ragged breath. “What was that?”

“Laura!” Natasha yelled. “Talk to me. What happened?”

“Don’t know,” she murmured, touching her head. The after-image of Dante’s disgust still lingered vividly. “Just don’t let me get hit by those again.”

“I’ll try.”

Natasha switched lanes and drove straight up the glass face of a towering skyscraper. As they blazed across the building’s face, defying gravity as they did, an enormous advertising screen mounted across the side of the building flickered to life. A familiar one-eyed face appeared on the screen.

Director Nick Fury.

“Romanoff, those big cannons are Psi-Scream Weapons.” Fury’s voice echoed across the street. “They reach into the target’s skull and flood it with their deepest subconscious fear and hatred. Be careful with them.”

“Useless,” Laura muttered. “Could’ve used that thirty seconds ago, One-Eye.”

Natasha chuckled. “Cut him some slack. He was probably trying a way to establish contact.”

“He should do better as SHIELD’s Director. I guess he’s a puppet for a reason.”

Natasha forced a laugh. “Let me take a wild guess. You saw Dante hating you for your past actions. That ruined your mood.”

“...He threw me out,” Laura spoke softly. “I love him so much.”

“Woah. So honest. What happened to the feral girl who fought tooth and nail to not shower everyday?”

“I’ve been tamed,” Laura admitted shamelessly. “One more thing: a person is known by the company they keep.”

Natasha slowed down. “Hey, you little shit.”

What followed was a string of colorful Russian words that were lost in the wind. Getting called a liar by Laura of all people had riled Natasha up.

Laura grinned, delighted to have landed one on the Black Widow. “So what would you see if one of those guns tagged you?”

“Hard to say. Yelena and the others, dead by my hand, probably,” Natasha said. “Or losing control in this form, burning everything.”

“You and your grand ambitions. I’m happy being a normal woman.”

“I got too much blood. Good thing for me I’m immune to psychic attacks.”

“Fuck you for that.”

“Hold on tight.”

Natasha ramped up the speed. The bike rocketed off the top of the skyscraper and sailed across the air on a comet-tail of hellfire. The bike slammed down onto the hull of one of the looming Brood ships, all according to Natasha’s plan.

Laura got off the bike before it stopped and ducked under a screaming beam. She dodged around every Psi-Scream shot, knowing that another vision would demoralize her. She drove her claws into the ship’s plating and ripped an opening before dropping inside.

What followed was a one-sided slaughter of pilots and crews inside.

Natasha walked over to the control hub and looked around. She mashed at the alien controls and glyphs flared under her flaming fingertips. “I can’t steer this thing.”

Laura stared at her. “...This was the plan?”

“You got a better one? I’m all ears.”

“Don’t ask me to think. You know my brain isn’t built for that.”

“Yeah.” Natasha pressed another button, which opened up a small drawer. “That’s why I didn’t consult you.”

Laura looked around, but she couldn’t find anything. “What do we do now, genius?”

A fiery skull manifested in the air beside them. “Stupid host. Use the Hellfire and make it yours.”

The Spirit had come to offer her two-cents to get them out of this situation.

Natasha’s burning jaw dropped open with an audible clack. “I thought I needed to know how to fly it first.”

“NO YOU DON’T!”

Natasha pressed her hand against the alien control panel and poured Hellfire into the ship. And as was the case with every vehicle Natasha claimed in her Ghost Rider state, the Hellfire-corrupted version was way cooler. The ridges sharpened into spine-like lines across the ship. The surface turned red before Hellfire filled every inch of the space. The flames didn’t hurt Laura; it wouldn’t burn anyone Natasha didn’t want to hurt.

The screens flickered and came online, showing a live feed of the chaos outside.

Except the sky wasn’t full of Broodlings anymore.

Hovering serenely in their place was a lone woman.

She wore dark green armor and carried a sleek black sword in each hand. Her long dark hair whipped in the wind, presenting the image of a calm and ancient goddess.

Below her, the streets were full of Broodlings’ corpses.