Marvel: The Awakened One

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Exactly.

People did not mind suffering. They just hated watching everyone else win.

This was the real reason behind the mutant struggle. The official story said mutant awakenings were too dangerous, that their powers were unpredictable, unstable, and likely to cause massive damage.

It sounded reasonable at first, but it was just an excuse.

Why did you get to wake up one day with godlike powers while we remained ordinary?

If we cannot have it, then you do not get to keep it either...

That’s exactly why Hawk never tried to build an army of Bronze and Silver Saints for himself. As long as he was the only one with godlike, world-changing power, people would respect, flatter, and fear him. But if they learned his power could be copied, and they could reach his level by training their Cosmo, everything would change.

Hawk would bet his life on it. No matter what dimension he was in, even if he wiped out the whole planet, people would still crawl over the bodies trying to steal his training methods.

It was not malice.

It was human nature.

While Hawk and Wanda spoke, the teenage mutant, now completely bald, finally finished healing the crew leader’s shattered arms. The leader staggered upright, leaning heavily on three of his men.

Hawk’s attention returned to him.

”You know Magneto?”

The leader stiffened. ”...I know of him.”

”Talk.”

Hawk needed to pinpoint the timeline. If he could determine where Magneto stood in this world’s history, he could date the universe immediately.

The leader frowned and looked at Hawk’s calm face before answering. ”We’ve only heard stories. None of us has actually seen him. Nobody has seen Magneto since he dropped a stadium on the White House ten years ago.”

Confirmed.

This was the X-Men: Days of Future Past timeline.

Wait.

What was the movie right after Days of Future Past again?

Hawk’s mind raced. He didn’t know much about the X-Men comics or movies. At most, he’d skimmed a few summaries. Still, one thing always bothered him.

Reality did not need logic, but movies did.

So how did mutants, with their reality-warping, godlike powers, end up at the bottom of Earth’s food chain? Even if they didn’t want to conquer the planet and build a Mutant Empire, couldn’t they at least create a Mutant Kingdom?

Hawk did not understand it.

He also did not care enough to untangle it.

Now that he had confirmed the Days of Future Past timeline, he had a solid guess about where Jean might be hiding.

The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning.

The X-Mansion.

The problem was that Hawk had no idea where the school actually was.

He looked back at the crew leader. ”Do you know the address of the X-Mansion?”

The leader blinked. ”The X-Mansion?”

”The Xavier Institute. Professor X’s school.”

”Uh...”

The leader glanced at his crew, then shook his head. ”We’ve heard the rumors. People say it’s a safe haven for mutants, but nobody I know has actually been there. Most people don’t even think it’s real.”

Hawk arched an eyebrow. ”Rumors?”

”Yeah. We heard about the school from an out-of-towner at one of the mutant underground communities. He came to New York looking for sanctuary. Maybe you can ask around there.”

The leader quickly rattled off an address in Queens.

Hawk studied his face. He was not lying.

Without another word, Hawk walked over to the table covered in stolen cash. The crew watched in nervous silence as he looked at the stacks of Benjamins, then took one stack. Then another. Then a third.

The leader and his men held their breath, too scared to move as Hawk picked up the money like he was playing a claw machine. But he didn’t take it all.

He stopped after ten stacks. A hundred grand.

After stuffing the cash into his duffel bag, he searched through the rest of the piles and tossed the hidden dye packs onto the floor. Then he looked back at the leader.

”Be careful when you split the rest. That dye doesn’t wash out.”

Hawk slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, nodded to Wanda, and walked out with her. Behind them, the leader and his crew just stood there, stunned.

”I thought you were going to take it all,” Wanda said.

”Thought about it.”

They left the warehouse and caught a cab. As they drove toward Queens, Wanda’s voice echoed in Hawk’s mind.

Hawk replied in his thoughts.

We don’t need all of it. A hundred grand will cover our expenses.

They had no plans to settle down in this universe.

Hawk didn’t want to stay, and Wanda agreed. They had one goal: find Jean. After that, they would leave.

Still, Hawk’s Eighth Sense of Life warned him this trip wouldn’t be so simple.

But everyone knew Hawk’s philosophy.

He believed a smart man avoided a falling wall. He thought revenge was best served cold. And he always crossed the bridge when he got to it.

Future Hawk could deal with future problems.

Right now, Hawk only cared about the present.

Wanda asked about Magneto and Professor X. That’s when Hawk suddenly remembered something.

If this was the post-Days of Future Past timeline, then this universe should have its own Quicksilver too.

It would be a different version of Pietro.

He had silver hair, goggles, and wore eighties punk clothes.

Unlike the world-weary Pietro from their universe, this Quicksilver still had the naive, cocky energy of a kid who hadn’t faced reality yet.

As soon as Hawk pictured the X-Men’s Quicksilver, Wanda saw him too.

”Who is that?”

”...Quicksilver.”

”Who??”

Wanda froze, then the answer clicked.

”Pietro? That’s Pietro?”

Hawk hummed to confirm, then frowned as another memory surfaced. Didn’t this Pietro have a sister?

In the movie, Quicksilver was shown watching TV with a little girl. But Wanda was Pietro’s older sister, so who was the child?

Hawk remembered looking it up while researching mutants. The internet argued about it for ages. Eventually, the producers said the little girl wasn’t Wanda, but Pietro’s younger sister. Pietro did have an older sister, though—a deleted scene proved it.

In that cut scene, Pietro’s mother told the little girl, ”Go bug your sister.”

The girl replied, ”She bugs me.”

So everyone assumed the little girl was Polaris.

But in the comics, Polaris was his half-sister, which started another argument because the timeline didn’t match. The debate spiraled, and Hawk stopped reading.

This time, he might finally get an answer.

Wanda got over the shock of seeing this alternate Quicksilver and shared her thoughts.

”He doesn’t look like an older brother. He looks like a kid brother.”

Hawk smiled slightly. ”Because in this universe, you are his older sister.”

In most versions, Wanda and Pietro’s birth order barely mattered.

Wanda’s eyes lit up. ”There’s a version of me here??”

As soon as she saw the image in Hawk’s mind, her instincts told her he was a little brother. You couldn’t fake that naive look in his eyes.

Unlike the Pietro from their universe, whose eyes showed the weight of a hard life. One look at his scruffy face, and anyone could tell he was the older sibling.

Everyone knew the truth.

Every younger sister secretly wishes she could be the older one.

When Anya-616 crossed into their universe, the first thing she did was find their Anya and try to act like the older sister.

So it was no surprise that when Wanda realized she was the older sister in this reality, she felt a real surge of excitement.

Hawk sensed it right away.

”If you want, we can try to track him down.”

”...Let’s hit the mutant underground first.” Wanda tried to hide her excitement. ”Once we find Jean, if there’s time, we can go look.”

This Quicksilver might be Pietro, but he wasn’t her universe Pietro.

Finding their daughter was the top priority.

Soon, the cab crossed the bridge into Queens and stopped a block from the address. Hawk paid, and he and Wanda got out to walk the rest of the way.

”You seemed to know exactly where that address was,” Wanda said.

”Of course.”

Hawk smiled at her. ”I lived in Queens for a long time. I know my way around.”

Wanda nodded and did not press further.

Before long, Hawk led her to the address the crew leader gave them. They stopped outside a peeling five-story brick apartment building and walked through the front doors.

A gruff building manager immediately stepped into their path.

”Sorry. This is private property...”

Wanda raised her right hand.

Scarlet Chaos Magic swirled around her palm, looking like red mist.

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