Marvel: The Awakened One

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Midnight.

Inside house number 123 in Westview.

Hawk sat by his daughter Jean’s bed, reading from a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Jean’s eyelids fluttered, her breathing evened out, and soon, with her small hand clutching the hem of his shirt, she fell fast asleep.

Just as he had done when manipulating the timeline, Hawk didn’t stop immediately. He finished the story, closed the book, and gently untangled his shirt from her grip. He set the book on the nightstand, placed a soft kiss on her forehead, and quietly left the room.

Then…

He made his way to the guest room, the one with a clear view of the house diagonally across the street—Amy’s house.

He pushed the door open.

There they were.

Gwen and Wanda were sitting on small stools by the window, staring intently at the house across the street.

Of course.

When there was a juicy piece of gossip on the line, women suddenly possessed boundless energy. Staying up all night was no problem at all.

And…

It seemed a good piece of gossip was all it took to cement a female friendship.

Case in point:

Gwen wasn’t the only one who thought Amy buying a car and withdrawing cash meant she was planning to elope with Andrew. Wanda was fully on board with the theory.

So.

Anticipating that the ’elopement’ might happen tonight, the two of them had been staking out the window since Amy’s lights went out at ten o’clock.

Gwen turned as Hawk walked in.

”Is Jean asleep?”

”Yeah.”

Hawk nodded, then glanced out the window. With his enhanced vision, he could see right through the walls of the darkened house. He saw Amy, not in bed, but sitting on the living room sofa, clearly waiting for someone.

Just then.

His Seventh Sense—the invisible net spanning a three-mile radius around Westview—pinged.

A specific fish had just entered the net.

”He’s here.”

Hawk’s eyebrow arched as he focused his gaze on the perimeter of his sensory field, three miles outside of town.

There, under the pale moonlight and scattered stars, a blood-red silhouette was moving with incredible speed, tearing toward Westview like a phantom.

In the blink of an eye, the figure closed the distance from three miles to two.

Then one mile.

Half a mile.

He was in town.

The blood-red figure moved like a ghost, landing silently in Amy’s backyard.

The intruder looked up, his face illuminated by the moonlight.

He had a close-cropped buzz cut and a ragged stubble, his face weather-beaten, like a man who had spent years living off the grid, surviving in the wild.

He was older now, the thick beard replaced by rough stubble.

But…

It was undoubtedly Andrew Chloe.

The moment Andrew touched down in the backyard, Amy, still sitting on the sofa, seemed to sense him. She looked toward the back door. Her eyes lit up with a mixture of overwhelming surprise and joy, and she scrambled to her feet.

The next second.

Andrew stepped inside. He saw Amy running toward him, and his weathered, exhausted face broke into a smile of pure, long-awaited happiness.

They collided in a fierce, desperate embrace.

Amy held him tight, her hands gripping his back as tears streamed down her face.

Even though she had seen him last night…

She had been half-asleep. She’d convinced herself it was just a dream.

But today!

”Oh God, I knew you weren’t dead.”

”I’m so glad.”

Amy murmured, holding him as if afraid he might vanish again.

Andrew pulled her close, burying his face in her hair. Hearing her words, his voice was thick with emotion. ”Don’t mention that damn name. He’s the reason our family was destroyed.”

Yes.

After he had been resurrected by those two ’birdmen’—Jack and Allen—it had taken a long time, but he had finally pieced together the truth.

It was true.

He was just a nobody. A guy who hadn’t even gone to college, a guy who, at his lowest point, had worked three jobs just to keep himself and his wife afloat.

But…

Even nobodies have their own kind of cunning.

After he was brought back to life, he hadn’t known why Jack and Allen had murdered him only to resurrect him.

But he was certain of one thing:

They had an ulterior motive.

And he was right!

Years after they had forcibly converted him into a ’Blood Angel,’ he finally managed to pry the truth out of them during a drunken stupor.

The truth sounded utterly absurd.

He didn’t want to believe it, but it was undeniable.

His son was simply too exceptional.

So exceptional that, as he grew, he would eventually pose a threat to Yahweh Himself. He would become a man who could confidently declare: ’The Lord has fallen; today, I claim the throne.’

And…

God wasn’t happy about that.

His son had already thwarted several of Yahweh’s schemes and had even destroyed one of His projections. In response, God dispatched three angels, splitting them into two groups to avoid detection by the son.

One angel traveled down the son’s timeline.

The other two—Jack and Allen—traveled down Andrew’s timeline. The moment they arrived, they severed their own wings to permanently blind the son to their presence, and then, they murdered Andrew.

The plan was simple: make the son an orphan, ensure he was raised by the church, indoctrinate him, make him worship the Lord, and ultimately, force him to submit.

When Andrew learned the truth, he nearly exploded with rage.

He wanted to slaughter the drunken Jack and Allen right then and there.

But he couldn’t.

Because Yahweh’s grand design didn’t end there.

Andrew had learned something else from the two angels.

The reason Yahweh couldn’t manifest on Earth was because Mephisto, the ruler of the Hell Dimension, had claimed dominion over the mortal realm.

If Yahweh wanted to project His glory back onto Earth, He first had to reclaim the authority over life and death.

And that meant killing Mephisto.

Ever since Mephisto had banished Him from Earth, Yahweh had been laying the groundwork for His return.

Jack and Allen were the vanguard, the designated protectors of a newly born Angel of Death.

They were to find the Angel of Death before it fully awakened, act as its guardians, and guide it to initiate the War for Hell. Once Mephisto was dead, they would conquer the Hell Dimension and bring it, and Earth, under Heaven’s rule.

As for Andrew...

If his son still chose the path of rebellion, then, once they controlled the authority over life and death, they would use Andrew—his own flesh and blood—as leverage to break him.

Andrew couldn’t let that happen.

He absolutely refused to let that happen.

So—

He played the fool. He endured. He followed Jack and Allen, lurking in the shadows of the Vatican, biding his time.

He saw the true face of their so-called ’holiness.’

Depravity.

Corruption.

It sickened him to his core, but for the chance to see his wife again, to see his son and his daughter...

He endured it in silence.

Until—

One day, while Jack and Allen were busy partaking in another grotesque ’celebration’ in the catacombs, a letter arrived from a priest named Moreau.

Andrew read it.

He didn’t hesitate. He destroyed the letter. Then, after years of silent suffering, he finally made his move, slipping away before Jack and Allen even realized he was gone.

His original plan had been to track down and eliminate this ’Angel of Death,’ thereby permanently ending Yahweh’s ambitions for Earth.

He had failed.

He barely escaped with his life, stowing away on a cargo ship. When he finally woke up, he saw the Statue of Liberty looming in the distance.

He thought of his wife, his son, and his daughter.

But he knew how terrifying Allen, Jack, and their vampire thralls were. He didn’t dare enter the city openly.

For days, he had hidden in the wilderness, only venturing into the city under the cover of darkness. Like a wandering ghost, he searched his old home, desperate for any sign of his family.

He remembered Amy’s heart condition, constantly terrified that she might have passed away before he could find her.

Just as he was about to give up hope, as he was trudging back to the wilderness in despair, he caught her scent on the wind.

He couldn’t believe it. He followed it to Westview and saw her, smiling, surrounded by three children.

Seeing how healthy and happy she looked, he assumed she had remarried.

Until—

He heard a stunningly beautiful woman with fiery red hair, holding a one-year-old child, call Amy ”Grandma.”

In that moment, Andrew was ecstatic, but he forced himself to stay calm. He couldn’t be reckless.

The reason was simple.

He could feel a terrifying, overwhelming energy radiating from the red-haired woman.

He feared it was a trap.

So he kept his distance, observing from afar, until two days ago, when he received word that Jack and Allen were heading to a small town in Texas. He remembered the letter from Father Moreau, who had also been heading to Texas, and he couldn’t wait any longer. Last night, he had finally revealed himself, embracing his sleeping wife.

He had to go to Texas.

He had to kill the Angel of Death. And then, he would take his own life, permanently severing any leverage Yahweh might have over his son.

As Andrew spilled the truth, Amy’s expression shifted from disbelief to an all-consuming fury. Hearing his plan, her face hardened. She looked at the man she had loved and lost twenty years ago.

”I’m going with you.”

”No, Amy. You can’t.”

”I said, I’m going with you.”

Amy gritted her teeth. ”He destroyed our family. I’m going with you to get justice. For you. For our son. And for our daughter.”

She took a deep breath, stepped back from him, and grabbed her car keys, her eyes burning with fierce determination.

”I’m going with you.”

”…Alright.”

Andrew opened his mouth to argue, but meeting her gaze, his own eyes filling with tears, he gave a heavy nod. ”Alright. We go together.”

The next second.

A voice echoed from behind them.

The tone was cool and resonant.

”No. You’re not going anywhere.”

”...”

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