"Alright, take me back to Harlem." Bronte said as he swatted a firefly the size of a small child off his shoulder.
They'd been trekking through the savage lands jungles for an hour.
"Cmon, bro. We've dealt with worse in South America." Gabbie commented.
"Roberto would take offense to that." Ilyana said.
"Yea and he can take his fiery little sensitive butt somewhere else then." Gabbie retorted.
Ilyana sighed, "Where were you two years ago."
"Taking down government agencies with my big bro." Gabbie held Bronte's hand and skipped beside him. A surprisingly youthful and nostalgic choice of movement that clashed with her more mature and dark aesthetic.
She caught it and went back to walking normally as she checked her phone. "The service here is janky as hell."
"Remember, the trees here emit a stronger magnetic field than anywhere else. Plus the iron in the sap is way more potent. It makes compasses and electronic signaling somewhat innacurate." Ilyana said.
Brontë suddenly wished he stayed awake on their ride.
"Does that mean magneto could control the jungles here?" Junior asked.
"In theory….. I think that's why he tried to take it over once." Ilyana replied.
"HE WHAT?"
Ilyana shrugged, "Do not be surprised when a megalomaniac does megalomaniac things, no?"
"Aye, man…. Let's not call him that after I put him and his kids in leadership roles over all of mutant-kind." Bronte said as he popped his claws and cut through a giant jungle bush.
"I thought it was X-Kind?" Junior said.
"It is. Brontë just likes using slurs like all old people." Gabbie drawled.
"Damn….. I'm old people now." Bronte mumbled. If he wasn't in a faraway superjungle full of symbiotes and dinosaurs he'd be taken aback by his sisters words.
"My old man." Ilyana said as she grabbed his other hand.
"Y'all chill! I'm not even twenty five yet."
Brontë kicked down another bush and took a step before stopping altogether at once.
The others stopped behind him.
"What is it?" Ilyana asked.
Gabbie replied, as if her and Brontë shared a brain suddenly. "We're standing on a walk path."
"It looks like everything else." Junior whispered.
Brontë pointed to the ground, "The weeds aren't growing up. They're growing to the left. We're on a bend. And the trees are marked….. seventeen feet up. Either this path was made by giants… or monkeys."
"Or giant monkeys." Gabbie added as they looked up the trees bark and found leather straps wrapping the bark.
"Why would you say that?" Bronte asked.
"We can literally shoot metal talons out of our hands why is a giant monkey crazy?" Gabbie replied.
"Because we haven't seen one yet." Bronte replied.
"True…."
Ilyana and Junior stiffened as Gabbie and Brontë suddenly popped their claws.
"Where?" Ilyana asked as her skin turned to steel- reminding them all of her relation to Collosus.
"A mile north. Walking through a river. They're musty as hell." Bronte replied, ears still twitching at the sounds of movement ahead.
"Got it." Ilyana teleported out of their sight in a blink.
Suddenly, apish screaming and yelling began to echo through the jungle.
"At least it's not the cat-people." Gabbie said before turning and running up a tree behind them.
Brontë turned to glance at Junior. His brother looked so small in the jungle with his black suit and curly red hair.
He couldn't imagine someone having enough evil in them to try and take his life.
He shook off the murderous thoughts that followed, "Remember what I said?"
"Stay alert and stay close." Junior replied.
"Yea forget that last part. Back up for me." Bronte said.
As Junior backed away and hid behind a bush, Ilyana teleported back to Bronte's side.
"They're.... cavemen. With advanced weapons."
"How advanced." Bronte asked.
"W—"
Brontë dashed in front of Ilyana just as the pitter patter of rifle fire ripped through the jungle.
Six bullets hit the back of his head. Casually, he shook them out of his scalp and turned back to the jungle they ran through in armed terror.
As they came closer, he inhaled. Magic charged the air.
A second later, he blew the air from his lungs and sent a destructive gust through the greenery, knocking down trees and atomizing the bugs in the air.
With the cover of the trees and bushes gone, it revealed the army of cavemen in the distance, all knocked down and left rolling backward from the wind blast.
They were large, strapped with muscle and wrapped in Kevlar vests. Some of them touted modded rifles while others wielded grenade launchers and crossbows.
As they recovered, instead of looking ready to fire once more, a look of shock washed over their faces, causing their large yellow and blue eyes to widen as they looked at Bronte's hands and began pointing.
"OOH! OOH! FANG-FIST! OOH!" One of the cavemen said before taking a knee.
Slowly the others followed. At the same time they raised their left fists and held their right hands behind it with three fingers raised. Seemingly mocking Bronte's claw pattern.
"I think you're famous." Junior said.
"No…. Not me." Bronte realized.
"Hey, furball! Who do you think you are fucking with my planet of the apes cosplay? Just because I let them make a religion about you doesn't mean you get to walk around screwing with the weather! I was tanning my ballsa—…."
From behind the kneeling cavemen, a man emerged. Brontë knew it was a man because he was taller and hairless. But he was also covered in hideous ulcers and smelled like death warmed over. The only thing covering him was a loin cloth and a mask made of the hide of a red dinosaur with black dye around the eyes.
"Well look at what the sabertoothed cat dragged in." The man said as he walked through his kneeling cavemen allies. "On your feet, hairy asses. This ain't my clawdaddy. He's black."
Gabbie fell from the trees. "Why would you say that?!"
"Yea what's your problem?" Junior asked.
The man threw his hands up, "Hold on, children! Fear not! I'm not racist. It's just….. the man I know with claws like that is a couple degrees paler…. And short. And more handsome in a rugged way that makes you want to—-"
"Alllllright." Bronte said as Ilyana teleported beside him.
"Who else here has claws like these?" Gabbie popped her claws.
Bronte's stomach twisted.
The man gasped in shock and put a hand to his masked mouth.
"He's been cheating on me!" The man grabbed one of his cavemen, "New law, infidelity is punishable by DEATH! This applies to everyone but me."
"This man is bizzare." Ilyana commented.
"Don't judge me. I have to live with Proto-humans. I just introduced the concept of taxes to these rabble-rouses. It's about to get real depressing in about three generations."
"Dude….. who are you?" Bronte asked.
"I.... Hmm…. Wolvie calls me—"
"AHHHHHHHH!!!"
The roar was unmistakably human, but feral as all hell.
Flocks of birds took to the skies.
Boars and herbivorous dinosaurs ran for the hills.
The man in the dinosaur skin mask giggled. "Haha! The man of the hour."
When he arrived, it wasn't who Bronte was expecting— even as his nose told him by the familiarity.
She hadn't aged a day. She didn't look any different even though she now wore animal skins and bone armor. Her skin was a shade darker from living outside. Her hair hung down to her waist. But it was her.
"Bronte…?"
"Laura!"
Yo! now we know where she’s been. but that’s not even the half of it since I think you’ve all just discovered (again) who else is here. lmk what ya think and thanks for reading!