Chapter 23
Wolverine exploded from the fissure-cave not like a man, but like a force of nature unleashed. He was a whirlwind of raw, primal fury, low to the ground, moving with a speed that defied his bulk. The metallic snikt of his six adamantium claws extending was a sound that sliced through the mountain silence, sharp and utterly lethal. His yellow eyes, burning with centuries of pain and rage, locked onto Elias and Thomas.
Thomas MacIntyre, Barbarian-enhanced and ever-loyal, reacted instantly. He shoved Elias behind him, positioning his own formidable body as a shield, and roared a defiant challenge, his own features contorting into a mask of primal savagery. "Get back, Mr. Thorne!"
But Wolverine wasn't aiming for Thomas. His senses, already inhuman and now perhaps infinitesimally, confusingly sharpened by Elias's token empowerment, had pinpointed Elias as the source of the strange new sensation, the unwelcome intrusion into his tormented mind. He changed direction mid-lunge, a blur of motion, claws extended, aimed straight for Elias's throat.
Time seemed to slow. Elias, still reeling from the monumental influx of Wolverine's power, felt his own newly acquired senses scream a warning. He saw the glint of the claws, smelled the feral scent of Wolverine's rage, heard the whistle of air displaced by his charge. And his body moved.
Not with conscious thought, but with an instinctual, predator-level reaction he hadn't possessed moments before. He sidestepped, a movement far faster, far more agile than he could have managed previously. Wolverine's claws slashed through the air where his throat had been, missing by a hair's breadth. The sheer killing intent coming off the mutant was a physical force.
Before Wolverine could recover for another attack, Elias felt a new, strange sensation in his own hands. A phantom weight, a prickling at his knuckles. Instinctively, driven by the mirrored feral rage now coiling within him, he focused his will.
SNIKT!
Three gleaming, razor-sharp adamantium claws, identical to Wolverine's own, erupted from between the knuckles of his right hand. They felt... utterly natural, an extension of his own being. The shock of their appearance, even to himself, was momentarily stunning. He was no longer just Elias Thorne, clever landlord. He was something else, something that could meet this feral rage head-on.
Wolverine, seeing his own signature weapons mirrored on this young, otherwise unassuming human, skidded to a halt, his yellow eyes widening fractionally, a flicker of stunned confusion warring with his berserker fury. This was impossible. No one else had these claws. No one.