" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGH!!!!"
The roars tore through the room, like a sonic scream throwing everyone back and cracking the walls. The remaining pillars of Sector 4 tore itself apart from the sound. The flashing red emergency lights shattered instantly, plunging the entire underground into the dark, only illuminated by two things, the radioactive toxic green aura radiating from the now free Hulk, and the burning crimson slits of Weapon H's eyes.
Logan barely had time to cross his arms before the shockwave hit the elevated catwalk.
CRACK-SHWREEEEK!
The heavy iron platform tore completely free from the wall sending Logan into the dark, airless void of the chamber, hitting the ground like a boulder.
BOOM!
He smashed into the reinforced steel floor plates, leaving a massive, two-foot-deep crater in the metal. Every single nerve in his body screamed in agony. Even with his advanced Mutant Physique, the raw force felt like being hit by a freight train. Blood welled up in his throat, hot and metallic, before he forcefully spat it out onto the frost-covered floor.
Deep within his torso, the familiar, agonizing heat of his healing factor flared . Torn ligaments snapped back together like overextended rubber bands. Crushed blood vessels re-knit themselves in seconds, pumping fresh, oxygenated blood back into his limbs.
But there was no time to breathe.
To Logan's left, the Hulk wasn't waiting around to be attacked. The neurotoxins Stryker had dumped into the tank had driven the Hulk into a state of pure uncontrollable madness.
"HULK... SMASH!!! RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!"
The Hulk lunged. The air pressure in the room compressed violently as the massive green giant crossed the fifty-foot expanse of the laboratory in a single, earth-shattering bound. He raised both of his tree-trunk arms high above his head, interlocking his massive green fingers into a double-hammer strike meant to drive Weapon H straight into the ground.
CRACK-THOOM!
The impact shook the entire mountain range. The steel floor plates beneath Weapon H's boots buckled, shooting outward as a massive fissure tore through the concrete flooring, exposing the raw bedrock beneath the facility.
But Weapon H hadn't moved an inch.
Through the smog of white freezing steam, Logan's heightened senses tracked the impossible. Weapon H had raised his left arm, stopping the Hulk's strike with nothing but his raw, adamantium-plated forearm. The jagged, silver metal ridges protruding from the hybrid's grey skin hummed completely absorbing the shockwave.
The Hulk's glowing green eyes widened in brief, confusion. Nothing survived a direct hammer-strike. Nothing.
Weapon H slowly tilted his massive, block-shaped head. The crimson slits of his eyes flashed with a cold, terrifying intelligence that the raging Hulk completely lacked.
"HRRRRRAAAAGH!"
With a sickeningly fast horizontal swipe, Weapon H drove his right fist forward.
SHR-LICK!
The three, large adamantium claws extended from his knuckles tore through the air. They sliced through the Hulk's green skin like tissue paper, burying themselves a full two feet deep into the giant's massive chest.
"GYUUUUUUUUAAAAAAARGH!!!!" the Hulk shrieked, a sound of genuine, burning agony that Liam had never thought possible from the strongest there is. Fluorescent green gamma-blood sprayed across Weapon H's ash-grey face, sizzling violently as it dripped onto the cold floor.
Weapon H twisted his wrist mid-injury, ripping through the Hulk's pectorals before using the embedded metal as a meat hook. With a terrifying display of strength, the hybrid lifted the twelve-hundred-pound Hulk entirely off his feet with one arm and hurled him across the laboratory.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
The Hulk flew like a ragdoll, smashing through three separate concrete reinforcement walls before burying himself under fifty tons of collapsed ceiling rebar at the far end of the sector.
It's now or never, Liam thought, he's distracted. If I don't drop him right here, we aren't leaving this mountain alive.
Logan sprinted out of the crater, his boots gripping the slick, blood-soaked floor plates. He pushed his strength to the absolute limit, channeling every ounce of stored power into his forearms.
SNIKT!
The six silver claws popped from his knuckles, but they didn't stay silver for long. The Hot Claws skill flared with a violent, low-frequency hum. The metal shifted from cherry red to a blinding white that instantly vaporized the frost on the floor around his feet. The air warped and shimmered around his hands from the sheer heat of his claws.
Logan vaulted off a ruined piece of computer console, his powerful legs propelling him through the air. He targeted the one vulnerability his heightened sight could find—the narrow, fleshy gap in the adamantium armor plates right at the base of Weapon H's massive, bull-like neck.
"You shouldn't have messed with me, bub!" Logan roared.
He brought both sets of white-hot claws down in a dual-overhead strike, aiming to sever the hybrid's brain stem in a single blow.
SPARK-CRACK!
The white-hot claws hit home. The smell of burning flesh was immediate and sickeningly dense, filling Logan's nostrils with the stench of scorched ozone and charred marrow. The burning blades melted through the outer layer of grey skin, biting deep into the dense muscle tissue beneath.
But Weapon H didn't fall.
Instead, the hybrid's trap-muscles contracted holding Logans arm in place, physically clamping down on Logan's claws. Logan grunted, his muscles straining as he tried to rip his hands free, but it was like trying to pull nails out of solid titanium.
Slowly, Weapon H turned his massive head around a full ninety degrees to look directly at Logan, who was currently riding his back. The hybrid's face was a horrific mask of unbothered, cruel amusement.
"HUH... LITTLE... MAN," Weapon H rumbled, his voice deep and rough. It could send shivers down ones spine.
Before Logan could react, Weapon H reached back and grabbed him by his bare shoulder, and violently tore him off his back. The raw force of the grip tore chunks of flesh straight off Logan's collarbone, but the hybrid wasn't done. He swung Logan around like a doll and slammed him face-first into the solid steel floor.
SLAM!
The ground shattered. Logan bounced off the bedrock, only for Weapon H to bring his massive, foot down directly onto Logan's spine.
CRUNCH! SQUELCH!
The sound of his organs rupturing echoed through his own ear drums. If his bones hadn't been reinforced by the adamantium, his entire torso would have been reduced to a red paste. As it was, his lungs collapsed instantly, forcing a torrent of dark blood from his lips.
[CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED: INTERNAL ORGANS CRUSHED]
[HEALING FACTOR OVERLOADED: PRIORITY ROUTING TO RESPIRATORY REPAIR]
I can't... move... he groaned in pain, so lost in pain that he couldn't focus on a single thought, as pure, blinding agony filled his vision. The weight of the metal inside him felt like a thousand-ton anchor, pinning him to the stone while his regeneration desperately tried to heal his organs from the inside out.
Weapon H raised his right hand, the three claws extending to their maximum length, gleaming with a deadly, reflective sheen under the ambient green glow of the room. He aimed the tip of the center blade directly at the back of Logan's skull.
"DIE... AGAIN..." the hybrid sneered.
But the final blow never came.
From the mountain of rubble at the back of the lab, a brilliant, blinding flash of emerald light erupted. The fifty tons of concrete and steel rebar were blown outward in a violent explosion of pure force.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!
The Hulk was back. But he wasn't just angry anymore. The gamma energy radiating from his body had shifted from a steady glow to a raging, chaotic firestorm. Gamma energy bursting out his eyes like flames, and his teeth glowing pure grown. His rage unbridaled and unstoppable.
"HULK... IS... THE... STRONGEST!!!! THERE IS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!"
The Hulk charged like a runaway train, his feet tearing the steel floor grates out of the ground with every stride. Tackling Weapon H out the building, pulverizing the building around them.
CRACK-THOOM! BOOOOOOOOM!!!!
The concrete ceiling overhead finally gave way, thousands of tons of rock and ice collapsing downward in a massive landslide.
The force of the tackle carried the Hulk and Weapon H clean through the heavily reinforced exterior wall of the underground mountain base, bursting out into the open air.
Logan was swept along in the chaotic wake of the collapse. The landslide carried his battered body upward and outward, tumbling through dirt, shattered concrete, and ice until he was violently thrown out onto the snow-covered slopes of the mountain.
Thud.
Logan rolled down the steep hill, finally coming to a halt against the thick trunk of a frozen pine tree.
Above him, the Canadian wilderness was trapped in a freezing blizzard. Ice cold winds howled through the valley, driving shards of ice against his raw, exposed flesh. The cold air normally would have slowed his healing factor, but right now, the pure shock of the fresh oxygen was exactly what his Passive Adaptive Regeneration needed to kick into overdrive.
Gasp!
Logan took a deep breath as his lungs finally healed enough to function properly. He dragged himself to his knees, his hands buried deep in the freezing white snow, his breath showing in thick, ragged clouds.
Fifty yards down the slope, the battle continued.
The blizzard was completely torn apart by the sheer heat of the conflict. The Hulk and Weapon H were locked in a savage, close-quarters brawl that was flattening the ancient forest around them like toothpicks.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM ! BOOM! BOOM !
CRACK!
CRASH!!!!!!!
The Hulk delivered a devastating left hook that caught Weapon H squarely in the jaw, sending a spray of grey teeth into the snow. But Weapon H didn't even stagger. He absorbed the blow, leaned forward, and drove his massive head into the Hulk's face.
BANG!
The headbutt sent the Hulk stumbling back into a grove of pine trees. Weapon H followed up instantly, his claws slicing through the storm in a blinding flurry of silver steel.
SHWREEE-EXT!
Every swipe left deep, glowing emerald gashes across the Hulk's chest and arms. The Green Goliath was fast, but Weapon H possessed the lethal combat reflexes of Logan and Sabretooth combined with the raw, infinite strength of a Hulk.
"RUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAARGH!" the Hulk screamed, trying to bring his hands together in a thunderclap to disorient the hybrid, but Weapon H anticipated the movement. He sliced upward, severing the tendons in the Hulk's right wrist before the hands could meet.
The Hulk roared in frustration and pain, dropping to one knee as his right hand hung at a useless, bloody angle.
If the Hulk drops, I'm next, Liam realized, his teeth grinding together as he stood up, his claws sliding out with a sharp SNIKT. I can't let him kill the giant. I need that green bastard alive if we're going to win this.
But how? His Hot Claws hadn't been enough to pierce the main armor plates. He didn't have enough stat points to upgrade his core physique.
He looked down the slope. Weapon H had raised his colossal blades, aiming them directly at the Hulk's exposed throat for the final, decapitating strike.
" You picked the wrong man, bub!"
[RAGE FUNCTION: BERSERK RAGE — ACTIVATED]
"GRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
A roar tore from Logan's throat that didn't sound human, mutant, or monster. It was a primal, scream of pure, unadulterated rage that drowned out the howling of the blizzard.
His eyes rolled back, the lingering pain from his recovering body vanished, overwritten by a massive, surge of adrenaline and raw heat.
BOOM!
Logan launched himself off the snowdrift, leaving a crater of packed ice behind him. Weapon H's claws were a mere two inches from the Hulk's throat when Logan flew right at him.
Logan didn't aim for the neck gap this time. This time he was coming to hurt.
He slammed into Weapon H's his six adamantium claws extended to their absolute limit. He drove his right fist straight into Weapon Hs shoulder.
CRACK-SHWREEEEK!
Metal scraped against metal with a horrific, ear-splitting shriek that sent a shower of white-hot sparks flying twenty feet into the freezing air.
"GWUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAARGH!!!!" Weapon H roared, his massive frame violently staggering sideways from the sheer impact, his strike on the Hulk completely derailed.
Logan didn't stop. Like a rabid animal he climbed the hybrid's massive torso, using his left set of claws to rip into the grey flesh of the beast's chest, tearing out massive chunks of muscle and glowing green veins.
"GYAH! I SMASH YOU!!! PUNY MAN!!!!!!!!!" Weapon H screamed, his crimson eyes flashing with sudden, genuine fury as he realized the small animal on his chest could actually hurt him.
Weapon H brought his massive left hand up, his claws swinging in a brutal, slash aimed at Logan's midsection.
SHR-XT!
The massive blades tore through Logan's flanks, slicing through his skin and muscles, exposing his adamantium-coated ribs. Under normal circumstances, Logan would have fallen, his body going into shock from the catastrophic blood loss.
But the Berserk Rage was numbed the pain, and his Passive Adaptive Regeneration was working at a terrifying, hyper-accelerated speed fueled by pure adrenaline. The flesh across his torso was already knitting back together around Weapon H's claws even as they were being withdrawn.
Logan didn't even flinch. He bared his bloody teeth, his eyes locked onto the giant's face, and brought his right fist back.
SNIKT!
He deactivated the Hot Claws—he didn't need the heat anymore, just the raw, cold, unyielding weight of the metal. He drove his fist straight up into Weapon H's open jaw with a brutal, short-range uppercut.
BANG-CRUNCH!
The force of the blow shattered Weapon H's lower jaw, sending fragments of bone and grey skin flying into the snow. The hybrid's head snapped back violently, his massive ten-foot frame stumbling backward three full steps through the deep snow.
From behind them, the Hulk dragged himself to his feet. He wasn't about to let the fake him win. Hulk is the strongest there, Hulk is the only Hulk!
"HULK... AND... LITTLE... MAN... SMASH!!! RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!"
The Hulk launched his massive, uninjured left fist forward in a straight jab that carried the weight of a collapsing mountain, while Logan leaped from the snow, his claws crossed in a dual-X strike aimed directly at Weapon H's blinded, crimson eyes.