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Dante materialized in the dorm room with a soft pop of displaced air. A barely noticeable sound in the grand scheme of things. The teleport left him prickly as his skin was bursting with mystical energy. He inhaled deep and expelled everything in one go. Golden-orange light burst from him, casting over the walls before fading to nothing.
"Warm human!"
A streak of lavender launched at him—a wild Sharon was resting in his bed. She landed on the ground, transformed, and then spun to face him. Just the bigger version of her cat form, an appearance similar to that of a panther. It wasn't the menacing form used in the training battle.
She tackled his chest like a battering ram. He took a quick glance behind and then let himself be pinned on to the bed.
Sharon put her paws on his chest and licked his jawline with her rough tongue. "Where were you? Catseye thought you left."
He could feel the care in her eyes. Only Angelica treated Sharon like a friend in this bunch, but she was only present briefly. Sharon had nobody else to make friends with. Death and him had unknowingly fulfilled her need for companions.
"Not now, Sharon. Running low on time."
"Low on time?" She tilted her head, one ear flopping. "Where? Catseye can take you on her back. Where is Death? Catseye will carry both."
The offer was so earnest it almost made him smile. He reached up and scratched behind her velvet ears, right in the spot that made her purr. "I can manage. Death, can you spend some time with Sharon?"
"Of course, Companion." Death rose from a shadow and scooped up Sharon in her arms, a soft smile on her face. "Let him work. I'll play with you."
"Okay, Black Lady!"
"Death isn't black…" Dante didn't know what to feel about this mutant, who casually said things that would've gotten her canceled in his previous world. "Anyway, I'm off."
He sprinted to the window. Glass exploded outward as he vaulted through without a care in the world. Shards rained down like brittle diamonds, glittering in the pale winter sunlight. A few kissed his skin but couldn't even scratch it.
"Venom, bonding time."
"YEeeeeSSSS!" The symbiote's voice was full of joy. "Become one."
"Companion, take my blessing as well." Death's calm voice still showed a hint of her affection. "Be invincible."
The symbiote erupted from beneath his skin. Black tendrils writhed up limbs and sealed him in a skin-tight suit. His muscles thickened and stretched as the symbiote matter lost its gleam, becoming a thick plated armor. Death's blessing hollowed out his face, replacing it with a skull. Golden blue flames flared to life in the hollow sockets.
The burst of raw power made Venom want to throw its head back and roar to announce their presence to the world, to make everything in a mile radius know that they had arrived.
He nearly gave into the impulse like last time. "Not now, Venom. We'll scream our hearts out later."
"We understand…" It sounded a bit sad. "We'll roar next time."
A line of symbiote matter out of his palm and latched onto the academy building opposite to the dorm building. It was just like Ghost Spider's web-fluid, except he could control the length and strength of symbiote matter. It was part of his body, after all.
He crashed through the third-floor window in yet another explosion of glass—more property destruction, more bills to pay for Emma.
He spun on his heel and sprinted across the entire hallway in seconds. He could have teleported directly to Laura's room, but that would have startled her badly enough to trigger an attack reflex. Calming her down and explaining would take more time than this little warm-up with Venom.
Laura's room came right into the view. He could hear the conversation happening inside.
"Eat up, kid. Those skinny hands won't do shit against stronger mutants."
"I said I'm full!" Laura snarled then spoke in a softer voice, "Emma, bring me pancakes. Warm, freshly baked."
Laura asking for comfort food was some progress. It still felt like she had no trust in Logan.
"Dear, you should've said so earlier," Emma said in a maternal voice before sighing. "Which flavor do you prefer? I'll ask the chef to drop everything and bake some—"
Dante ripped the door out rather than wait for Emma to open it. He couldn't wait for Laura to eat her pancakes either. Crossing twenty kilometers in under fifteen minutes might or might not be doable. He didn't know his maximum speed.
"Dante?!" Emma shrieked, blue eyes filled with alarm. "What happened?"
For a split second, real worry bled through her expression. She feared something terrible must have happened for him to crash through her academy like this. It wasn't the reaction he expected after he had left her embarrassed in Psylocke's room.
Emma Frost showing real care was a rare sight.
"Oi, bub, what the hell—"
"Nothing to do with you, Logan," Dante said and locked eyes with Laura. "Widow called. We gotta go."
The mention of Widow and unspoken mention of Sarah flipped her switch instantly. She kicked back her chair, put a boot on the table, and leaped toward him.
She did a front flip and landed beside him. "Where do we meet her?"
"Wait," Logan said in a low, menacing voice, unsheathing his adamantium claws. "Where are you taking her?
Dante frowned. "Laura."
Laura also took out her claws. "Let me go, old man. It's important."
"What's important is you stay with us, kid," Logan said in a softer voice, folding after just one warning from his daughter. "SHIELD will be watchin' you."
"SHIELD can't do shit," Dante snorted. "Why do you think they haven't tried anything to take Laura back?"
"Logan, let him go," Emma chimed in to support him. "Nobody can hurt Laura if she's with him."
Laura grunted and slashed the chair in half. "Stop wasting time. I'm going with him."
Logan glared at Dante like a wolf. "You haven't told me where you're taking her, bub."
"To see her friend." Dante took Laura's wrist and led her out of the room.
"I'll hunt you down if I see a single scratch on her."
In the end, Logan didn't push his luck, knowing it might anger Laura. And irritating Laura wasn't something he wanted.
Dante killed off the solar radiation fueling the flames surrounding his skull, leaving only the ghostly blue flames. "Get on my back."
She scaled his back and hooked an arm around his thick neck. He loved how decisive she acted when it came to the matters of her mother. There was no hesitation about being burned by his flames. Well, she had survived worse than flames, so she wouldn't even be frightened by the idea of jumping into a fiery pit.
He looked back and nodded at Emma before leaving the room. It was refreshing to see Emma be supportive and kind for once. Maybe Laura's past was so tragic that it evoked sympathy in Emma since she had seen all of Laura's memories.
"Hold tight. This'll be fast."
Laura clung to his neck with both arms. With a symbiote swing, he burst through yet another window.
At that exact moment, he saw Sharon sitting on the shattered window watching him. Every Hellion student had gathered behind her except Angelica, attracted by the noise in his dorm room; they all stared in awe and surprise.
They had never realized the man they had fought was the infamous Skullfire.
Another tendril burst out of his left palm and attached itself to the dorm building's roof. He flew forward with wind howling in his ears.
He pulled up the directions on his phone and handed it back to Laura to act as the navigator. "Buzz me if I go in the wrong direction."
"Got it."
Just then a voice yelled at him from below, "Skullfire!"
He glanced down and saw a blue sedan slow to a halt in the snow-packed academy driveway. Tires were still spinning when the passenger door flew open. A woman with fiery red hair burst out and sprinted toward him, boots crunching the snow and breath fogging in panicked bursts.
"Come down!" She shouted. "I have something to tell you!"
He didn't recognize her. There were too many redheads. But if he had to guess based on the current timeline…
"Jean, wait!"
That was exactly the name on his mind. The owner of the voice slammed open the driver's door.
A tall woman with striking white hair and dark skin stepped out. Her long coat whipped behind her as she caught up with the redhead. She grabbed the redhead's arm and pulled her back. Her silver eyes stayed locked onto Dante, a look of wariness on her sharp features.
Her response made perfect sense. She had picked the wrongness of his symbiote suit immediately and kept Jean away with an excuse. From their perspective, he probably looked like a villain.
"Miss Ororo, it's him." The redhead struggled against Ororo's grip, but she wasn't strong enough for it. "I have to tell him."
"He's on urgent business," Ororo replied in a calm voice befitting her former status as a revered deity in East Africa. "Let him be."
He didn't need the names to recognize the white-haired woman. She was far too iconic for that.
'Jean Gray. Storm.'
Their presence got his mind racing. X-Men had made a move despite SHIELD being in such an oppressive position. Nothing unusual. But what was Jean's urgent business with Skullfire?
The symbiote armor parted on his wrist and exposed his watch. 1:03 PM. Twelve minutes to reach Natasha.
"I'm busy right now," he said in a theatrically deep voice.
Jean's face twisted, showing frustration or perhaps despair.
"Speak your business with Emma."
Some light returned to her face. "We will!"
He turned away and fired a thick symbiote tendril toward a distant tall pine. Getting involved with Jean and Ororo meant stepping straight into Xavier's business, and that trail led directly to one of the planet's most terrifying mutants—Magneto. Dante preferred to be much stronger than those two Omega-level behemoths before he made their acquaintance.
Until then he was fine with relaxing in Emma's circle.
A few more swings carried them through the trees, and then he landed hard on a snow-dusted forest road.
Activating Elixir's link with a thought, he changed his muscle structure for maximum mobility. And he accelerated into a dash.
Trees shuddered violently as he passed—leaves and branches rained down like confetti from the sheer force of displaced air. Just Venom and solar radiation had already massively boosted his speed to superhuman levels. With the muscle optimization on top, his figure became a blur to even the sharpest human eyes.
'About two-fifty miles per hour,' he estimated the speed after running some calculations in his mind.
The wind whipped past like blades. His solar-charged body shrugged it off completely, but Laura didn't have that luxury. She had weathered this cold in just a tank top. At this speed, she had to tighten her arms around his neck and press herself closer to feel the warmth coming from him.
He poured more solar radiation to fuel a flicker of flame inside his skull. "Bear with it for a little longer."
"I'm fine," she stated calmly, even though her shivering body told a different story. "Wouldn't it draw attention?"
They were still in a dense forest, but the road ahead led to a populated town. She was warning him about the spectacle that might possibly attract SHIELD's attention.
He tapped Sue Storm's resonance and enveloped them both in an invisible forcefield that bent light around their forms and covered the sound as well. He was saving it for when he reached close to the town to save some mental strength.
"This is what?" Laura's voice carried a bit of wonder. "Why are we shimmering like glass?"
"Invisibility."
There was a pause as she scanned herself and him. "Is this a mutant power?"
She couldn't conceal the hostility in her voice. Her conditioning had been erased, yet the years of SHIELD propaganda about mutants wouldn't magically disappear. The lies about mutants being ticking time bombs had sunk deep in her like poison.
"You're a mutant?"
He slowed his sprint gradually, then stopped completely at the edge of a forest. "What will you do if I'm a mutant?"
There was no response. Her hesitation only lasted a few seconds before—SNIKT—the claws of her right hand extended in a fury. She pressed those blades against his neck, grazing the underside of his chin with the sharp tip.
Both father and daughter had a bad habit of pointing their claws at anyone.
***
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