"Get out of the vehicle, now!"
As lightning hammered down again and again, the command truck finally gave up. Its systems failed. The metal frame began to glow, warp, and crack. Sitwell and Crossbones didn't hesitate. They bailed out at the same time, hitting the ground hard and rolling clear.
Under normal circumstances, a vehicle's metal shell and insulated tires could protect anyone inside from a lightning strike. As long as you didn't touch the interior frame, survival was possible.
This wasn't normal lightning.
Rowan had focused every strike with surgical precision. Helicopters, tanks, armored cars. Each target was hit by dozens of bolts at once, over and over, energy stacking until steel failed. Staying inside meant certain death.
Hydra's elite realized it too.
Tank crews abandoned their vehicles. Drivers dove for cover. Soldiers in the air jumped from helicopters, parachutes snapping open as they tried to escape the storm.
Rowan adjusted his wand slightly.
"Parachutes just make it easier," he said calmly.
The lightning changed direction.
Every bolt that had been tearing apart aircraft veered downward, locking onto the falling soldiers instead. By the time they reached the ground, nothing living remained. Blackened shapes struck the earth and didn't move again.
Coulson watched in silence.
It wasn't sympathy he felt. He'd spent too many years fighting Hydra for that. But there was a difference he couldn't ignore. Under Professor Xavier, enemies were stopped, restrained, spared when possible. Under Rowan, threats were erased.
Efficiently. Permanently.
"If I have any sense," Coulson thought grimly, "I'll never make an enemy of that man."
"Fall back! All units, fall back!"
Sitwell shouted into his radio as he ran, Crossbones close behind. There was no fighting this. No advancing. No targets to shoot at. Just death from the sky.
Even fanatic loyalty had limits.
They needed insulation gear. Specialized armor. Time to adapt. Without it, this battlefield was unwinnable.
Rowan turned to Professor Xavier. "Now."
Xavier placed a hand on Rowan's shoulder. Together, their awareness expanded outward.
The neural dampeners Hydra carried blocked domination and control. That wasn't the goal. This was something simpler.
Tracking.
The moment the connection locked in, Rowan redirected the storm.
Lightning spread out, no longer focused on machines, but on the retreating soldiers themselves. They ran. The storm followed. Speed meant nothing when the sky itself was hunting you.
Enhanced bodies endured more than ordinary ones, but not much more. Two or three direct strikes were enough to stop a man's heart cold.
Some survived.
Sitwell. Crossbones. The Winter Soldiers. A handful of others who reached the edge of the storm's reach.
Rowan let them go.
Not mercy. Intention.
He lowered his wand. The clouds slowly began to thin.
"Go," Rowan said.
The metal statues lining the academy grounds moved.
Eyes ignited with cold light. Massive forms tore free from their pedestals, joints grinding as they came alive. They roared, screeched, or howled depending on their shape, then charged toward the battlefield with thunderous force.
Their orders were simple.
Bring back the survivors.
Coulson stared. "Those statues are alive?"
The four- to five-meter-tall constructs crossed the ground in seconds. Solid alloy. Immense mass. Weapons bounced off them. Energy blasts left little more than scorched dents.
Winter Soldiers fought back hard.
It didn't matter.
Steel hands closed. Bodies were lifted. Resistance ended.
Minutes later, Sitwell, Crossbones, and the remaining Winter Soldiers were dumped unceremoniously onto the academy's front plaza, battered, restrained, and thoroughly defeated.
Rowan examined the statues as they returned to their places. A few bore shallow craters from heavy energy weapons.
"Next time," he muttered, "vibranium."
That would solve the problem entirely.