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Woooop! Woooop! Woooop!
Sirens resounded through the night sky over Quantico once more.
Quantico burned. After the fuel depot exploded, even the air seemed to glow with fire. The inferno lit up the entire facility under the dark sky, making it as bright as midday. Cracks spread across the tarmac like a spiderweb. In some spots, the ground split open; in others, it collapsed.
Hawk had destroyed Quantico before. He knew where to strike, what to break, and how to bring the place down quickly.
After the alert, Delta Force operators and Army Rangers rushed in. They saw Hawk burst through another building, raised their rifles, and fired without hesitation.
Gunfire ripped through the night. M4 carbines and M249 machine guns flashed, sending a wall of 5.56mm rounds at Hawk as soon as he entered their line of fire.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
There was no sound of bullets hitting flesh. Only the harsh screech of metal bouncing away. The rounds did not pierce him or even leave a mark on the red tactical suit he wore.
BOOM!
Hawk crossed the distance in a blink and drove his shoulder into the nearest soldier. The man came apart on impact, reduced to a red spray across the concrete.
BOOM! BOOM!
Two M1A2 Abrams tanks rolled out from the base defenses. Their main guns thundered, sending armor-piercing shells through the air at more than a kilometer per second, one aimed for Hawk's head, the other for his chest.
Hawk did not dodge. He opened his right hand and caught the first shell a breath before it reached his skull. The second slammed into his chest exactly where it was meant to.
BOOM!
Fire blossomed around him, and the shockwave hurled every soldier within fifty meters off their feet.
The live feed appeared on the Pentagon command center's main screen, and everyone in the room fell silent.
"Did that do it?"
"Christ."
"God help us."
No one looked away. They stared at the screen, tense and holding their breath, hoping for the only outcome they could accept. Then the smoke began to clear.
Hawk hovered half a meter above the ground, completely still. The blast hadn't harmed him at all. The flames hadn't moved him. He still couldn't project the energy of his Cosmo into this world, but his core was still tied to Phoenix Fire.
A piercing shriek tore across the sky as two F-22 Raptors dropped from the clouds like hunting birds. They banked hard, locked onto Hawk, and unleashed their air-to-ground payloads. White contrails carved through the smoke as the missiles spiraled down toward him.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Carpet bombing. Missile after missile tore into the base, shaking its foundations. Soldiers who failed to get clear vanished inside the blast radius, along with both Abrams tanks.
The order was simple. Hawk had to die. Everyone else on the ground was collateral. To the Pentagon, that only meant paperwork and double the standard death benefits.
No. This could never reach the public. The dead would be listed as missing in action. As long as Hawk was killed, nothing else mattered.
But that was impossible.
BOOM!
One of the Raptors couldn't pull away in time. A streak of red light shot through its fuselage, turning the jet into a fireball.
Hawk grabbed the second F-22 as it tried to climb. He caught it by the base of its right wing and threw it down. The fighter spun out of control, and before the pilot could eject, it crashed into the tarmac with its engine howling.
BOOM!
Another fireball erupted from the ground.
Hawk lowered his gaze and descended. He had given the people here a chance to live the last time he came. They had thrown it away. This time, he wasted no words. He simply went to work, north to south, east to west, tearing through everything and everyone on the base without discrimination.
Ten minutes later, the battle was over.
Quantico lay in ruins again. Fires burned in every corner. The crashed jets burned. The shredded tanks burned. The gutted armored vehicles burned. Even the mangled corpses scattered across the ground had caught fire.
Hawk, still in his red tactical suit, hovered high above the wreckage. Flames lit him from below as he stared at a building.
As he turned toward the Pentagon, something caught his attention.
Below him, the scattered fires across the base began to move, pulled together by an unseen hand. The flames rose, fused, and took the shape of a massive fire dragon that lunged straight at him.
"This is…"
BOOM!
Hawk faced it directly, smashed through the dragon, and scattered the flames.
An angry roar rose from the ground.
"Now!"
"On it!"
"Freeze him!"
Crack! Crackle!
Hawk looked down. Several figures in Sentinel uniforms had somehow slipped within striking distance. He had no idea where they had come from, but they were already there. Before he could react, a freezing sound crackled from his own body.
He turned toward the noise. Ice formed over his boots and quickly climbed up his legs. In seconds, it reached his head and trapped him inside a block of solid ice.
"Did we get him?"
"Clean hit, Deep Freeze!"
"You helped, Blaze. Try not to sound surprised."
Seeing Hawk frozen solid made the squad cheer with relief.
Deep Freeze checked his watch. It was custom-made, with a screen full of icons and a countdown timer. Every Sentinel Strategic Task Force member had one. As soon as someone injected Serum No. 8, the watch detected it and started the timer, showing how much time was left.
Serum No. 8 was Sentinel Services' latest breakthrough. It was top secret.
The name came from the serum's source. It had been drawn straight from Mutant Subject No. 8.
The logic followed the X-Gene Suppressant: the mutant whose blood could nullify other mutants had been designated Subject X, and the drug made from his blood inherited the label. Serum No. 8 followed the same naming logic, yet its function was the exact opposite.
It could grant anyone mutant powers—even an ordinary person.
With one injection, someone became a real mutant for five minutes. The limit was real, and so was the power. Most surprisingly, the serum had no side effects.
The six Sentinels on the ground—four men and two women, including Deep Freeze and Blaze—were the Strategic Task Force's elite. The Pentagon picked them through a tough selection process, and each codename matched the power their dose gave them.
Blaze: pyrokinesis.
Deep Freeze: cryokinesis.
Ghost didn't have true invisibility but could manipulate senses. She could erase her own presence and anyone she touched, making the whole squad disappear in plain sight. That's why Hawk never sensed them. With five minutes of borrowed power, she led the team right up to him.
"Three minutes left."
"I thought he was supposed to be tough."
Deep Freeze checked the countdown, grinned, and looked at the second woman in the squad. "Alright, Puppet. Your turn."
Puppet's ability was telekinesis over dead matter. She could animate a corpse, make it walk, even make it speak.
She closed her eyes, preparing to pull Hawk's frozen body down. A moment later, her eyes snapped open in terror.
"He's not dead."
"What?"
Deep Freeze's grin vanished. He looked up quickly and stared at the block of ice hanging above them.
BOOM!
The ice burst apart. Hawk's tiger-like gaze snapped downward, pinning the squad below in place.
The moment the ice broke, the color drained from Deep Freeze's face. His life force went with it. Blood burst from his mouth, and he toppled backward, dead before his body hit the ground.
There was always a cost to his power. Deep Freeze could freeze anything if he had water nearby. Without water, he used his own life force. If the ice held, he survived. If it broke, he died.
"Ghk…"
"DEEP FREEZE!"
The other Sentinels shouted as he fell.
Blaze's vision blurred. When it cleared, Hawk stood right in front of him. Blaze roared and threw his hands wide, trying to control the flames burning across the base.
"Ahhh!"
"Ghk!"
The roar cut off in his throat. Hawk's hand had closed around it. Still gripping Blaze by the neck, Hawk shot into the sky and stopped above the burning wreckage of the fuel depot. He looked at the man choking in his hand.
"You like playing with fire?"
"Good."
"Then take as much as you want."
Hawk opened his right hand and let Blaze fall. Blaze plunged straight into the burning depot below.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
"…"
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