Chapter 17
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The battlefield was a hellish mess of screaming and gunfire, the air thick with the stench of blood and the metallic tang of warp corruption.
Tony's repulsors barked out beams of destructive light, tearing through the twisted forms of what had once been men and women. Beside him, Hawkeye loosed arrow after arrow, each one embedding into the warped flesh of an oncoming monster before detonating in flashes of concussive force. Black Widow moved like a blade in motion, pistols cracking in short, precise bursts, her boots pivoting in the gore-stained ground as she spun, kicked, and tore through another.
"Tell me your special reinforcement isn't stuck in traffic, Stark!" Hawkeye shouted, loosing three arrows in quick succession, each one finding its mark with pinpoint precision.
"Relax, Legolas," Tony shot back, his voice tight with exertion but still carrying that ever-present smirk. "He'll be here any second. And unlike you, he doesn't need to count his ammo."
"Yeah? Well, I'm down to my last dozen shots, and in case you haven't noticed, they're not getting *less* ugly!" Hawkeye growled, shoving another arrow into his bowstring.
Jarvis' voice crackled in Tony's ear, smooth but edged with urgency.
"Sir, warp activity is spiking again. And… something else. I believe your 'special reinforcement' is about to arrive."
As if on cue, the warp energy that churned above the district shuddered, its miasma rippling like a disturbed ocean. The ground vibrated beneath their feet as an oppressive heat swept over the battlefield, thick enough to make even the corrupted things pause in their maddened charge.
From the haze of fire and smoke, *he* emerged.
Vulkan moved like a living mountain of iron and wrath, each step cracking the ground under his armored boots. His black and bronze war-plate seemed forged from the heart of a star, each surface glowing faintly with molten lines as if the volcanic forge still burned inside him. His gaze, molten gold and utterly unshaken, swept past the chaos — straight to the source.
Straight to Kevin.
But Tony caught it — that gaze wasn't *just* seeing the boy. No, Vulkan's eyes burned deeper, far beyond the material plane, drilling into the unseen depths where the god seed lingered.
"I see you," Vulkan's voice rolled like distant thunder, though his lips barely moved, "and I promise your inevitable demise."
The very air buckled. Pressure slammed down on the battlefield, a suffocating wave of primal heat that made the agents around them stumble. Black Widow's knuckles whitened around her pistols. Hawkeye's eyes widened just slightly, though he covered it with a muttered, "Oh, that's not intimidating at all…"
Tony, on the other hand, grinned like a kid on Christmas morning. "Oh… this is gonna be *good*."
The warp miasma recoiled violently, like a beast sensing the predator above it. In the unseen, the god seed's connection to the mortal world snapped shut in panic, the rift folding in on itself with a sound like screaming glass. Vulkan didn't wait for it to recover.
He moved.
There was no hesitation, no wasted motion. His massive frame blurred forward with inhuman speed, his weapon cleaving through a cluster of corrupted civilians in a single, precise swing that left molten cuts searing through what remained of their bodies. Another slash, another brutal kill — not for sport, but for efficiency. Every strike was final, every blow absolute.
Tony's sensors barely kept up with him.
"Sir," Jarvis noted, "I believe this is what you call… a masterclass."
But even Vulkan couldn't pull the god seed back — the presence had already vanished. The rift was gone. The hunt would have to wait.
Still, the Primarch did not stop. His focus narrowed to the present threat — the infected that remained — and with every motion, another abomination fell. Their claws shattered against his armor. Their screeches were drowned in the roar of his strikes.
Tony, Hawkeye, and Black Widow fell in alongside him, cutting down the stragglers that Vulkan's sweeping advance didn't reach.
When at last the immediate swarm thinned, Vulkan's eyes turned to Kevin.
The boy sat trembling in the haze, warp energy still bleeding off him in dense waves. Vulkan knew what he saw — raw, uncontrolled power. Dangerous, yes… but not beyond guidance.
First, though, the field had to be purged.
And with that thought, Vulkan advanced again, his steps shaking the ground, his blade rising for another kill.
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The streets finally fell silent, the last echoes of claws scraping asphalt fading into the thick, metallic taste of blood in the air. Bodies—or what was left of them—lay in twisted heaps, some nothing more than warped husks that crumbled to dust under the faintest touch. The miasma had thinned, its oppressive weight peeling away with each dying scream.
Vulkan stood at the center of it all, a towering figure of heat and steel, his movements precise as his will pressed against the raging warp energy spilling from Kevin. His gauntleted hand hovered just above the boy's small form, arcs of shimmering light rippling outward as he pushed back the chaos. Each pulse of controlled psychic force bled the madness away, drawing Kevin's strained breathing into something steady… calm.
Tony, still leaning against the cracked wall of a half-collapsed building, stared like a man watching a legend walk out of a history book. "J, you seeing this?"
"Yes, sir," Jarvis replied smoothly in his ear, the AI's tone just shy of reverent. "Though I'm unsure whether to categorize him as a man or a natural disaster."
"Yeah," Tony muttered, still catching his breath, "leaning towards both."
Not far off, Clint and Natasha stood in silence, weapons still raised but eyes locked on the massive, armored figure. Clint leaned slightly toward Tony without looking away.
"So… you gonna tell us who your medieval tank friend is, or…?"
Tony opened his mouth, grin already forming. "Oh, you're gonna love thi—"
Before he could finish, Vulkan rose to his full height, Kevin's limp, sleeping form held effortlessly in his arms. He didn't say a word. No warning, no explanation. He simply turned, heat rolling off him in slow waves, and in the blink of an eye, his form shimmered—and was gone.
Tony froze for a second, blinking at the empty space where the Primarch had been. "…Okay, rude."
Both Clint and Natasha now had their eyes locked on him, waiting for an explanation. He met their looks, shrugged casually, and tapped the side of his helmet. "I'll fill you in later. For now, call for backup and start clean-up."
They didn't move, still silently demanding more, but Tony's gaze had already shifted to the scene around them. The dust drifting where civilians had been. The blackened, twisted remains of those beyond saving. His chest felt heavier than the armor around it. He let out a long, tired sigh.
"Damn it…" he murmured under his breath.
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