Show me your limits
Asphodel glided through their attacks like a dancer, always just a hair out of reach.
“He’s not even trying to hurt us,” Logan muttered as he retreated a few feet, eyes narrowing. “He’s watching us. Studying how we fight.”
Scott gritted his teeth. “Just keep the pressure on, we need to win some time.”
Logan snapped back, “I’m tellin’ you, something’s wrong here. This guy’s holdin’ back.”
“I said keep going!” Scott barked, unleashing another blast.
Then—
Everything changed.
Asphodel stopped moving. Just for a second. He raised his hand.
A shimmering line of red-gold light surged toward the sky and slammed into Storm.
She didn’t scream, didn’t get the chance. She choked on it.
A second later, the sound tore from her throat, primal and raw. Her eyes went wide with agony as every nerve in her body lit up like a live wire. Lightning burst from her without control, tearing through the sky and slamming into the trees.
Her body crumpled, falling from the air like a stone.
Logan was already running.
He caught her before she hit the ground, one arm around her shoulders, lowering her gently to the ground, checking her vitals in a frenzy.
“She’s alive,” he growled, voice shaking with fury, he looked at Cyclops “barely.”
Scott’s eyes were wide, frozen for a second too long.
Asphodel watched, calm as ever.
“She didn’t die, fascinating,” he said softly. “What interests me most is not your powers, but your limits. How much agony until the mind snaps? How many waves of pain before your enhanced bodies break?”
Logan’s claws extended with a snikt, and his eyes gleamed with something ancient and dangerous.
Asphodel smiled, his eyes fixated on Scott.
“Show me your strength” He said as he raised his hand directly at him.
The moment the beam surged toward him, Scott pivoted hard on his heel, his reflexes barely saving him. His visor sparked as he turned to shoot a blast to intercept the second beam coming straight at him, but it wasn’t enough.
The shimmering red-goldy energy pierced through the counterattack like a blade through paper. It hit him square in the chest, and his world exploded in red-hot agony.
He dropped to his knees.
His scream ripped through the clearing, sharp and instinctive. Every nerve felt as if it had been doused in gasoline and set ablaze. Sound rung in in head. Sight blurred. The air grew thick and tasted like fire and blood. Cyclops tried to get back up, to fight through this pain, his mind on the young mutants who must have suffered so much in Asphodel’s grip. An anger-fueled raw scream shout of of his mouth as he tried to fight to blackness on the edges of his vision.
Asphodel whistled in appreciation but didn’t relent the attack.
And just as his Scott’s body threatened to give out, despite his efforts, a blurry familiar shape moved into view.
Logan.
Claws gleaming in the sick light, he stepped between Scott and the beam. His shoulders squared, arms half-raised ready to strike, standing in a half crouch, shielding Scott.
Scott gasped, lungs seizing for breath as the pain dulled slightly, the worst of the blast diverted. “W-what—Logan, get outta the way—!”
But his limbs weren’t working. He couldn’t rise. His hands trembled, stuck between wanting to help and barely holding onto consciousness.
And Logan,
He didn’t scream.
He didn’t flinch.
But Scott could see it—the tightening of his jaw, the subtle shake in his shoulders, the death grip of his clenched fists. The beam was hurting him. Logan was just bearing it.
Asphodel’s grin widened. “Fascinating,” he murmured. “You endure more than most of them. What are you?”
“Somethin’ you won’t live long enough to figure out,” Logan growled under his breath.
Asphodel raised his hand—and the beam intensified.
Scott could smell something burning. His own breath caught again. “Logan, just run, go warn the others!” Cyclops said weakly between coughs.
“Not happenin” Logan muttered, not taking his eyes off the villain. His voice was lower now, harder, strained. “Cike can you move?”
“I—I’m trying,” Scott ground out, pushing against the dead weight of his limbs with all his might despite the blazing pain.
Logan nodded once, then risked a look over his shoulder. There was a glint in his eye despite the pressure of the beam bearing down on him. “Looks like you’re the damsel in distress, huh?” he rasped with a shaky grin. “Didn’t see that comin’.”
Scott eyebrow raised up, baffled, before starring. “Not the time, Logan.”
But Logan’s face sobered, he knew what he had to do, but he also knew that Scott would never look at him the same — that this would break his final straw, but these people let him into their home, and did it matter what Cike thought if he died here; it wasn’t even a choice.
“I know what you think of me,” he said quietly. “You think I’m some savage dickhead. An animal. Well—” His claws flexed. His shoulders rolled back. “Let’s see just how much of a beast I really am.”
Then he stepped forward.
One slow, steady step into the heart of the blast.
Asphodel’s smug calm wavered.
“Impossible,” the villain muttered. “You shouldn’t be able to move. You shouldn’t—”
Logan took another step.
Then another.
His boots left smoking prints in the dirt. His breathing was heavy now, every motion trembling with the strain. Finally, the pain made him drop to one knee, panting hard, fingers digging into the dirt.
But then as Asphodel increased his power to it’s limit, something in Logan snapped.
He snarled low, the guttural sound ripping from his chest. His shoulders hunched, his back arched and then his head rose with a slow, terrifying look.
His eyes were wild.
Not angry. Not pained.
Feral.