Chapter Two: Black as Night

[The Mighty Thor]

With a blinding ferocity, Logan dove at the quickly disappearing Rogue. Just a few yards from her, acting on instinct alone, Norrin mentally commanded his board to knock the vampire Lord off his murderous path. But as blindingly fast as the silver surfboard was, Logan was just that much faster. The demon spun out of the way and easily evaded the attack, continuing on toward Rogue. With Norrin preoccupied by the attack on his teammate, Blade was doing his best to fend off the advancing horde that was raining down upon them from all sides. He was a blur of motion as he did his best to dispatch one after another. But it seemed with every one that he reduced to ash, two more took its place. None of the blood sucking lackeys were all that powerful, but Blade was left to watch his allies defend themselves against the Master as the villains made up in number what they lacked in skill. Realizing that his board had missed Logan, Norrin unleashed another cosmically charged blast. It would have decimated the Master easily if not for the countless vampires that were swarming the heroes. Four of them latched onto chrome-covered alien, trying desperately to sink their teeth into the man. But instead of feasting on the alien, they found themselves burnt by the mere touch of his silver skin, sending them recoiling in pain. However, the attack was enough to send Norrin’s blast off its mark and ripping out into the surrounding forest, cutting multiple trees in half in the process, toppling them to the ground. The result left Norrin with no doubt about the level of the power he possessed, but he still found himself watching as the Master set upon his now invisible prey, white gleaming fangs mere inches from her unseen neck.

As Sage worked her own brand of magic, Wong watched intently, making suggestions and comments to help her along in the translation. He replied to her curiosities as best he could, “I am hoping that we will not have to travel to Westchester this night, but just in case, you should be ready for anything. Logan has killed many of our kind, and those that haven’t been lucky enough to die have been turned into a member of his undead army. McCoy was one of the most dangerous of his brood, so I count us lucky to have had your aid in subduing him. The one called Storm preys upon the city nightly, recruiting more and more to her side. Her blood lust is horrific in its totality. The Panther, Nightcrawler, Gambit and the Widow have been sent out to extend Logan’s hold outside of the city. I fear his influence grows stronger with each passing night. Of coarse I couldn’t possibly list all of the Master’s allies, but I must mention Warren. He is possibly the worst of them all. After Betsy’s death and the loss of his wings, his insatiable self pity led him to willingly take a place at Logan’s side. And now the Angel of death stalks the night skies, raining suffering down upon all he sees.”

Selflessly, Hank threw himself between Archangel and his prey, sufficiently blocking the winged vampire’s path. But Warren realized that this was not the McCoy he knew. The resemblance was uncanny, but the scent told the charging vampire that the similarities ended there. Shrugging off the familiarity with the man he now faced, Warren continued his charge, intent on going through Beast if that was what he had to do in order to separate Frank Castle’s head from his shoulders. Castle and Victoria both realized that Beast’s position would do nothing to slow the Angel’s advance, so they took measure against him. Castle drew back on the string of his bow, aiming a wooden shaft past McCoy’s right shoulder, directly at the monster’s heart. Releasing the string, the arrow shot forward with amazing force and then snapped in mid air, shattered against the inside of Victoria’s newly erected telekinetic bubble. A split second later, Worthington impacted against the outside of the shield and ricocheted to the ground nearby. Realizing they were not out of the woods yet, Vance pointed to the rest of the vampires and yelled, “Look alive people, here they come!” And come they did, as the hellish version of Warren Worthington pulled himself to his feat and commanded his legion to attack. In a split second the monsters were all around them, putting a tremendous strain on Victoria’s mind as they scratched, clawed and did whatever else they could to get around her telekinetic shield.