Chapter 83 - Baldur and the X-men Part 9

POV: Baldur

Mr. Sinister's Island, Savage Land.

The Shadow King. Amahl Farouk, he's a telepath almost on par with Xavier, but he lost his body in a battle against him, and became trapped in this astral form in the astral plane. His loss also had some advantages; in this form, he has a much deeper understanding of the mind and its powers than Xavier, narrowing the power gap between them.

"You will pay for what you did to me, Xavier!"

The enormous head made of gas shouted down at us.

"How is this possible? How did you manage to escape the astral plane?" Xavier asked.

"With my help, of course," Sinister replied.

The astral plane is a metaphorical level of existence, linked to the physical world, which only psychic entities can visit.

"I don't possess the same level of psychic power as you two, but I am still accustomed to entering the astral plane. Then, it was just a matter of inviting our friend here to my cause. Which wasn't very difficult, I must say."

"Enough talk!"

The Shadow King descended from the sky like a giant and somehow penetrated Xavier's head, making him scream in pain. The battle of the two telepaths should be happening now, silent to anyone other than a psychic.

"You certainly are full of surprises," I say to Sinister.

"Thank you, I'm glad to see my efforts appreciated."

"And now? I doubt that was the last surprise. There must be a much bigger one for me, am I correct?"

Sinister smiles at me like a demon, he pulls out a device from his belt and presses it, nothing seems to happen immediately, but I remain on high alert, looking everywhere for any sign of an attack that doesn't happen. But I can hear a noise growing louder, approaching us.

"BOOM!"

Behind Sinister, a being appears, I can only describe him as a fusion between Hulk and Apocalypse. He was gigantic, muscular, and blue, wearing a medieval iron mask used in torture that covered his entire head, his body was covered in surgical scars as if he were a blue Frankenstein.

"So this is what you did to Apocalypse's body!"

It wasn't difficult to connect the dots and realize that this was what remained of Apocalypse's body.

"After many years of experimenting on him, I finally found a way to reanimate him, unfortunately, his brain was too damaged for him to regain consciousness."

"Oh, please. You don't need to lie to me; someone with your abilities should find bringing Apocalypse back to life not too difficult. Instead, you chose to leave him in this pitiful state just to conduct your experiments."

"Hahaha, you're right. He's more useful to me dead."

(A man insane with the idea of evolution, that's what I think of who he is.)

"Well, why don't we begin. Kill him!"

With that order, the reanimated corpse lunges at me.

(Let's see what this walking corpse can do.)

His punch is as fast as mine, even with his size. I put the handle of my spear in front of me to defend, and take the blow.

"BOOM!"

The force of his punch made me feel like I was being hit by a bomb; it wasn't just physical strength I received. Some kind of shockwave occurred when his punch hit my defense; the shock, whatever it was, pierced through my body and struck my unprotected organs, causing immense pain.

"BOOOOMMMMM!"

The blow sent me several meters backward, and I only stopped when I hit a small tree.

"HA!"

I bent over on the ground and vomited blood due to the damage I suffered. In the same second I was hit, I activated my magic runes to begin healing myself, although it was very painful.

When I looked up, I saw the Zombie ready to hit me again, so I rolled to the side. The monster's attack created a crater in the ground, destroying the tree I was on. When he attacked again, I was ready to counter-attack now, dodging his first punch and spinning Sigel, cutting through his entire torso. The cut was so deep that I could see the inside of his body, but to my surprise, I saw no organs, only several tiny mechanical creatures wriggling inside his body like insects, and shortly after, the wound healed.

(Nanobots!)

I leaped back, dodging another blow and spun Sigel, releasing a wave of golden flames that covered the monster's entire body. The flames engulfed his entire body, and I hoped it would be enough to turn him into ashes.

His gigantic hand emerged from the flames and grabbed me; I saw that my flames didn't even leave a small burn on his body. Somehow, the monster was immune to my flames. The second punch I took from him hit my chin, and the explosion came a little later, throwing me into the sky. Still recovering from the damage from the blow that hit my brain, I felt a hand grabbing my leg and throwing me to the ground.

"BOOOMMM!"

My body sank into the ground, and when I looked up, I saw the monster falling on me with both hands raised. With no time to dodge, I created several barriers of light in front of me, trying to defend myself.

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"

This time the explosions caused by the monster's blows were enormous, destroying a large part of the island we were on; I didn't even know if I accidentally killed any X-Men, and I'm not in a position to protect them.

The blow hit me squarely; I took a lot of damage, my armor was destroyed, and my body was covered in blood. The monster in front of me now had my spear through his heart; before his attack hit me, I also attacked him, but due to the shockwave, I dropped my spear.

"Isn't my creation magnificent?"

I look back and see Sinister looking at me, proudly smiling at his creation. I felt him accompanying us during our fight; he is definitely waiting for the best moment to attack me from behind.

"At first, I thought he was a failure since without his consciousness, he can't use his powers, but somehow, in his subconscious, he learned another very useful ability."

"Tactile telekinesis."

"Correct. I'm not surprised you guessed that so quickly."

The Zombie in front of me is unconsciously covering his body with an invisible field of telekinetic energy. This way, he increases his strength and also releases a large amount of energy with each blow.

I summoned my spear that was stuck in the monster's body, pinned it to the ground, and increased all my power with magic. I don't have telekinesis, but I can also mimic the effect of his punches by concentrating my energy powers on my fists, the same thing I did when I fought Abomination; this time, I will focus energy without worrying about the damage around me.

I resume the fight by punching the blue Zombie in front of me in the abdomen, my fist now glowing golden as if it were a small sun hitting him. There was no shockwave explosion like his punches, but where I struck, there was a hole the size of my fist.

(Nice effect.)

As my enemy felt no pain and didn't care about the wounds, he simply attacked me with several punches that I dodged. His wound began to heal at high speed. Sinister must have enhanced Apocalypse's natural regeneration with nanobots, making it more powerful. I don't see any other way to win without having to prolong this fight, that or destroying all of the Savage Land and part of the planet with the explosion of a star.

"This is going to take a while," I say aloud.

POV: Third Person.

Island of Mr. Sinister, Savage Land.

While Baldur was busy with his fight, the other X-Men were also in conflict with enemies well known to them.

Logan was in a state of uncontrollable fury as he fought an old enemy of his known as Sabretooth, a tall man wearing a yellow suit. His fighting style was as brutal as Logan's, and he had powers similar to his, so they didn't care about simple injuries. His main weapons were his claws, which could cut as much as Logan's.

"You've grown weaker after spending so much time with those kids, Wolverine," Sabretooth said, wiping the blood from his lips after taking a kick from Logan.

"Even so, I'm still enough to deal with a psychopath like you," Logan yelled, attacking Sabretooth once again. Their exchange of blows was balanced, but when Logan saw that they were approaching the trees, he had an idea. When the moment came for Sabretooth to be close to them, he kicked him in the stomach, causing him to fall backwards into the tree. A quick movement of his claws aimed at the ground cut off his leg along with the tree, which fell on top of his body.

"When I get out of here, I'm going to tear your head apart, Logan!" Sabretooth shouted as he tried to lift the tree that was on top of him. His strength would certainly be enough to do that, if Logan hadn't cut him first. But this wouldn't last long, only until his wound healed.

"You could try, but it's not like I'm not going to take this chance to rip your head off here and now," Logan said atop the tree, claws ready to end a fight that had been going on for too long.

"BOOOMMMM!"

Unfortunately for him, a burst of golden light occurred a few meters from him. Logan's instincts took over as he did everything to defend himself, hiding behind a tree before that whole part of the forest was destroyed and set ablaze, a side effect of Baldur's fight a few kilometers away.

Even taking cover, his burns were not few, but he would heal in some time. Sabretooth, on the other hand, couldn't take cover and had his whole body burned to such a degree that he turned black.

"What the hell kind of fight is that guy having?" Logan asked, leaning against what was left of a burnt tree as he looked at the flashes of light shining on the horizon.

In the opposite direction of them, Storm and Gambit were fighting two very different enemies.

One of them was named John Allerdyce, better known as Pyro. A mutant with the power to control flames as he wished. The other was Mortimer Toynbee, better known as Toad.

Pyro was a young blond man in a red suit, wearing two devices attached to his arms to shoot flames. He could control and shape his powers into whatever he desired. Toad, on the other hand, was a green-skinned teenager dressed to match the color of his skin.

"Burn!"

Pyro conjured up a massive fire serpent that chased after Storm, who attempted to evade its strikes. She occasionally fired lightning bolts that clashed against a barrier of flames created by Pyro. Similar to Baldur with his light, he was able to solidify his flames.

Gambit wasn't faring much better against his opponent, who used the jungle as his own playground. Toad utilized the trees as cover, attacking from their midst and then retreating into hiding. Gambit tossed explosive cards without hitting anything.

"Stop hiding and come out here!"

He shouted, withdrawing his staff from his attire. Toad shot his long tongue towards Gambit, who dodged to the side and attempted to fire a card at it, once again missing the mark. Toad then reappeared behind him, delivering a kick to the back of his head, nearly incapacitating him.

Dazed, Gambit still saw a tongue coming towards him, wrapping around his staff and pulling it from his hands.

"You shouldn't have done that," he said, smiling.

The staff went into Toad's hands, and when he grabbed it, the iron weapon glowed purple before exploding. The explosion wasn't enough to kill him, but it would certainly leave Toad immobilized for some time. With Gambit free, he scanned his surroundings for any sign of his beloved. All he saw was rain created by Storm in an attempt to extinguish Pyro's flames.

But the flames were unusual, and they didn't weaken even with this amount of rainfall. The flames then coalesced around Pyro's body, transforming into the image of a ten-meter-tall demon of fire that shot fire arrows into the air, attempting to hit Ororo.

With few options, she remembered the moment when Baldur used powers similar to hers, creating several tornadoes. She then did the same on a much larger scale.

A small cyclone began to form around the fire demon, which seemed unfazed by it. Until the flames began to slowly disappear, leaving only Pyro, who without the protection of his flames, was flung away. Storm used the vortex of air to suck the oxygen that was fueling the fire, thus winning the fight.

Amidst all the chaos unfolding on the island, the only one free of enemies was Ka-Zar and his tiger. It seems that Sinister ignored his presence or didn't even care about him, but it was a mistake. As he was now inside his laboratory, trying to find a way to save his beloved wife.

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