Ring! Ring!
The shrill fire alarm echoed through every corner of the sanatorium. Wisps of black smoke seeped from the ventilation ducts and countless cracks. Doctors and nurses rushed to evacuate the patients, but they were running out of time and couldn't find the source of the fire. Getting outside was all that mattered.
In the hospital's abandoned basement, the garden by the back entrance, and a disused elevator shaft, people in lab coats and even military uniforms suddenly emerged from hidden passageways.
Many ordinary sanatorium staff stared in bewilderment. It was as if an anthill had been disturbed deep underground. Too frightened to care that some of the escapees were splattered with blood, they all fled toward the road outside.
Before long, the ground shook violently beneath their feet. A muffled, thunderous rumble rolled in from afar. The sanatorium buildings swayed, then abruptly collapsed. Cracks dozens of feet long split the ground, and flames billowed up from them like something out of hell.
"I thought you were going to kill everyone here."
Azazel and Steve Rogers appeared out of thin air on a nearby hillside. Azazel took the Adamantium dagger Steve handed back to him. It was as clean as new, without a trace of blood.
"You're pretty handy with a blade, kid. I couldn't do it that neatly—not a drop of blood on you."
Steve gazed at the sanatorium ruins, where explosions and tremors still flared from time to time, then finally replied, "A weapon is just an extension of your fists and feet. A lot of the people down there had never even seen me. I only had to deal with a few I'd been 'getting along so well with.'"
They watched for a little longer. In the distance, a large number of military jeeps and armored