X-Force: Beyond Omega
Ch: 156 [Aron vs Chthon]

The monster that had once been Otto Octavius towered above the ruined street. Its flesh-metal tentacles lashed against the pavement, ripping through concrete and leaving glowing red cracks in their wake. Its eyes, no longer human, radiated with an eerie, ancient madness. Chaos magic pulsed in waves from its mutated form, poisoning the air.

Wanda's breath caught.

She recognized that signature. That surge of unstable, wild power. Chaos magic. There was no doubt about that. 

Her eyes widened.

"No…" she whispered.

She raised her hand, already preparing a portal. The crimson runes spun around her fingers. Emma stepped forward beside her.

"He's being possessed," Wanda said sharply. "They won't be able to take him down."

A sound interrupted her.

It was the delicate, crystalline sound of shattering glass. 

The chaos-fused Doc Ock jerked violently. His eyes froze mid-glow. The tentacles halted.

Then...

Crack!

A spiderweb fracture spread across the surface of his body.

The air around him pulsed, warped, and...

Clank!

Doc Ock's form shattered.

As if his entire existence had been nothing more than a reflection in a mirror.

Thousands of tiny fragments spun through the air, glinting with chaotic crimson before fading into silver dust. The chaos energy dispersed like smoke in the wind.

One second, he was a monster.

The next… gone.

Silence gripped the battlefield.

Gwen, still half-buried under broken glass, pushed herself up slowly. Her mask was torn near the cheek, and her breathing was heavy. She looked around, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Jubilee hovered in the air, blinking in disbelief. "Did anyone… did anyone else see that?"

Banshee lowered from the sky, his mouth still open as if preparing a scream that never came. Angel landed beside him, his wings twitching restlessly.

Pixie landed next to Gwen. "Where did he go?"

Gwen shook her head. "I… I don't know. He didn't explode. He just..."

"Vanished," Emma finished, stepping out of Wanda's portal. 

Wanda scanned the air, her red aura flickered softly around her. She could feel the residue. The echo of power. His existence was gone. However, she sensed a familiar presence in the air. 

Emma folded her arms, "It would seem, my man took care of this mess. Well, no point staying here anymore."

"Yeah, let's get out of here." Wanda used her reality manipulation power to fix everything around the place and healed the wounds of the civilians who got caught in the fight. 

Then, they left.

..

[Genosha – Aron's room, Midday]

Aron stood in front of the tall mirror near his balcony, fixing the collar of his black shirt for the third time.

He wasn't nervous.

Not really.

It was just a date.

With Natasha.

No pressure. He went on many dates before. So, nothing to worry about. Yet, his palm was sweaty for some reason. After wiping his hands, he ran a hand through his silver hair, smoothed down a wrinkle, then turned around as Goldy walked into the room, tail wagging lazily.

"How do I look?" Aron asked.

Goldy let out a low whine, then sneezed.

Aron sighed. "Yeah, I know. Too formal. But she said casual, and I still don't know what the hell 'casual' means for a woman who can wear tactical gear like a runway model."

He adjusted his cuffs one last time and stepped toward the open balcony, ready to teleport to Natasha's room and ask her on a surprise date.

He paused.

Something was wrong.

The sky shimmered, just for a moment. Barely a flicker.

But it was enough.

He turned sharply, eyes narrowing.

There it was again.

A ripple in the fabric of reality. Subtle. Thin. But it hummed with a signature he knew too well.

Chaos magic.

He clenched his jaw.

"Chthon." 

Aron sensed danger around Jubilee and the others. So, he used his super speed to go there and used his reality manipulation to erase Doc Ock's existence along with the Chaos magic, then he ran and stopped on an abandoned island.

He used the power of space to open a portal to Chthon's realm, following the traces of the Chaos magic. 

No more stalling. 

It's better to end that fucker before he pulls another stunt like this.

A swirling vortex of energy bloomed into existence in front of him, the air twisting and distorting around the forming gate. Unlike his usual portals, this one was jagged, unnatural, like it didn't want to exist.

He forced it wider.

Beyond the veil of blue space, Chthon's realm shimmered like a nightmare, dark red, rotting stars in a blood sky, twisted towers rising from mountains made of bone. The Flickering Realms.

He stepped forward.

...

[Flickering realm]

Aron stood at the edge of a massive obsidian cliff, his boots sinking slightly into a black, tar-like soil that pulsed with magic. Around him, shadows slithered like serpents, whispering names that had long since been forgotten.

He ignored them.

He walked forward, power already coiling around his fists. Death. Space. Reality. All of it focused and locked behind his glowing eyes.

In the distance, a massive throne loomed, rising from the center of a lake of still blood. Atop it sat Chthon.

Barely human.

He was a creature now, no longer even pretending to be anything else. A mountain of twisted flesh and bone, crowned in antlers of darkness, with eyes like dying stars and a mouth that never quite closed.

Chthon looked up as Aron approached.

The realm responded to Aron's presence. Trees turned to dust. The ground cracked. The chaos magic recoiled, hissing like a cornered beast.

"You enter willingly," Chthon said, his voice the grinding of stones and screams. "Brave… or foolish."

Aron stopped a few feet away.

"Just annoyed and bored, really," Aron replied as he cracked his knuckles.

He raised his hand.

The air ignited around him.

The Phoenix flickered behind his eyes.

"Time to die."

Chthon laughed.

It shook the ground.

"You are powerful. But not the truth. You are fire, but not the void. I am the whisper in your heart that knows every little dark desire buried inside you. I AM CORRUPTION. I AM CHAOS. I AM CHTHON!"

Aron stepped forward. The realm around him buckled.

"Why do every villain yaps monologues?" 

One moment, Aron was before his eyes, the next he vanished. Chthon's enhanced senses screamed of the danger. He barely dropped down from his throne and rolled onto the ground as an arc of raw energy swept past where his head was a moment ago.

Crackle! The space itself got erased.

"You insane bastard!" Chthon grumbled as he stood up. 

In this realm, his power was supposed to be absolute, yet here he was, barely dodging an attack from a human and rolling on the ground. 

The Flickering Realms screamed.

Aron launched forward like a blur of silver and light. Each step he took cracked the obsidian beneath him, space folding around his form like reality itself bent to make way.

Chthon roared, raising a forest of corrupted limbs from the ground. Tentacles of flesh, blades of bone, and spectral mouths that whispered madness surged toward Aron from all directions.

Aron didn't slow.

He lifted his hand.

Snap.

The entire forest exploded into fine red mist.

He moved through it like a ghost, untouched, unbothered.

Chthon hurled a bolt of pure chaos magic: a dark mass of spiraling energy that devoured light and matter alike. It tore through the realm, warping gravity, screaming in twenty voices at once.

Aron caught it.

With one hand.

His fingers curled into the mass, and with a grunt, he crushed it.

The scream stopped.

"Try harder," Aron mocked.

"ARGGG! DAMN YOU!" Chthon snarled and rushed him, his twisted form shifting, expanding into something monstrous... twenty arms, a hundred claws, a cathedral of bone wrapped in molten shadow. Each movement distorted the world.

Aron vanished again.

And then... Boom!

Chthon's side exploded in a brilliant flash of golden-red energy. A chunk of his ribs disintegrated. Acidic blood splattered across the field, burning holes in the earth.

The monster stumbled, screeching.

Aron stood behind him now, arm glowing with Phoenix fire and death energy intertwined, his expression cold.

Chthon barely had time to regenerate before Aron struck again. Another section of his torso was erased, clean and silent.

Again.

His shoulder gone.

Again.

A leg.

Chthon wailed, limbs flailing wildly, trying to keep up. For every wound that closed, another opened. Aron didn't relent. He didn't even speak. He just moved, too fast, too precise. A storm of annihilation.

Every strike burned with Phoenix power, tempered by the chilling grip of Death. Space warped around each blow. Chaos couldn't get near him; it recoiled every time, like a candle before a hurricane.

Chthon screamed in pain. In confusion. In fear.

This wasn't a fight.

It was one-sided smashing.

"You're not supposed to be able to do this!" Chthon roared, crawling backward, half his body in ruin. "This is my realm! My domain!"

Aron didn't respond. He simply raised his hand, and a black spear of condensed voidlight appeared in his grip.

He hurled it.

It impaled Chthon through the chest, pinning him to his own throne.

Chthon gasped, blood pouring from his mouth, his regeneration struggling to keep up.

But then, his eyes glinted.

Desperation.

He whispered something ancient and forbidden, and suddenly, the realm shifted.

Reality snapped.

The throne room vanished.

The sky turned upside down.

Aron blinked and found himself somewhere else entirely.

Dark.

Empty.

Silent.

The dream realm.

No. Not a dream.

A nightmare.

Chthon's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"You fight well. But you're still human. You bleed. You remember. You fear. Let me show you what you hide, even from yourself."

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