Marvel: The Awakened One

Hawk was right there, sitting cross-legged beneath the Chinese parasol tree, yet Jean could feel him disappearing.

There was no better way to describe it. Hawk hadn’t moved or changed in any way, but his presence kept fading from the world.

The feeling was strange and hard to explain, but Jean knew right away that something was wrong. She stared at Hawk, afraid he would disappear if she looked away.

“MOM! YOU NEED TO COME OUT HERE!” Jean shouted toward the house.

Wanda came outside right away. She looked straight at Hawk under the tree, and her eyes narrowed as she noticed the same change Jean did.

“Mom, Dad is—”

“His soul is being broken down,” Wanda answered.

Jean spun toward her. “What does that mean?”

“Your father is trying to pass through death and return to life. This is something he has to endure.”

Jean’s eyes widened.

“And if his soul is completely destroyed?”

“He’ll fade from everyone’s memory until no one remembers he ever existed.” Wanda’s expression remained calm. “Either he finds his way back to life, or he disappears into death forever. Those are his only choices.”

There was no third option.

There were great opportunities at the edge of life and death, but also dangers beyond imagination. This time, Hawk was taking an even bigger risk than before.

The first time, he took a shortcut and cheated to get his chance. Now, if he wanted another chance by his own strength, death would make him fight much harder for it.

Death did not appreciate being conned twice.

“Wait.” Jean frowned as Hawk’s presence seemed to recede even farther, though he remained directly in front of her. “Aren’t you supposed to have a way to bring Dad back?”

“I do.”

“Then—”

“But not this time.” Wanda looked at her daughter. “This time, Hawk has to save himself.”

When Wanda fixed Hawk’s timeline, she connected herself to every part of it. She was present in his past, present, and future, so she could see every danger he had faced and those still ahead. If something from outside threatened his life, she could step in and change what happened.

Time itself could not be reversed.

Wanda didn’t need to. Since she existed at every point in Hawk’s timeline, she could move against the flow of time.

But even that power had its limits.

She could stop others from causing Hawk’s death, but she couldn’t stop Hawk if he chose to face death himself.

Put bluntly, Wanda could make sure Hawk would never die because of someone else. But she couldn’t promise he wouldn’t get himself killed.

And this attempt to find life through death was a choice Hawk had made for himself.

He was on his own.

“What is Dad experiencing right now?” Jean asked, pressing her lips together as she watched him anxiously. “Do you know?”

Wanda looked at Hawk. It was as if her eyes could see into another world, where he kept trying to save his sister Anya over and over.

“He’s trying to undo his greatest regret,” Wanda said.

“Undo it?” Jean’s eyebrows rose.

Wanda smiled.

“A regret is a regret because it can’t be undone. Remember that, Jean. Once a regret exists, the only thing you can do is make peace with it. Don’t spend your life trying to rewrite it.”

She glanced back at Hawk under the tree.

“Time works the same way. No matter how often you change the timeline, certain things will still happen. Your father once told me that people are at their weakest when they start longing for the past. That’s usually when they’re trying hardest to escape the present.”

Jean tried to understand.

“If Dad knows regrets can’t be fixed, why is he trying to fix one?”

“Because of who this regret is about.”

Jean frowned, her mind racing. Soon, a name came to her.

“Aunt Anya?” Jean asked. “Dad’s regret is about Aunt Anya, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Wanda confirmed.

Jean took a deep breath.

“Then it must be about the accident that killed her. But Dad should’ve made peace with that by now. Aunt Anya came back to life.”

Anya’s accidental death was real, and so was Hawk’s grief. They had once only had each other, so losing Anya became Hawk’s deepest wound.

But Anya was alive again.

What regret was left to fix?

Wanda knew the answer, but she didn’t give it.

This was Hawk’s burden to carry. If he could let it go, there would be no need to explain. If he couldn’t, nothing Wanda said to Jean would help.

Either way, it was Hawk’s story to tell.

“You can ask your father when he comes back,” Wanda said.

“Really?” Jean’s face brightened as she caught the implication. “You’re promising that Dad will come back?”

Wanda chuckled, reached out, and gently tapped Jean on the forehead.

“Your father’s regret is something only he can overcome. I can’t help him with that—but you can.”

Jean immediately turned toward her.

“I can?”

“Stay here with him. When he comes back, tell him you never left his side. That’ll mean more to him than you know.”

Wanda walked back to the house without looking back.

Jean watched her mother go inside, then turned back to Hawk. Thinking about Wanda’s words, she crouched in front of him and put both hands on his knees.

“Dad, you have to come back!!”

——————————

Hawk couldn’t hear her… His soul was still trapped in Hell, where he had fallen into an endless cycle of death.

He knew how to break it.

He simply didn’t want to.

His mind and heart were fighting each other. His reason told him he couldn’t keep doing this. Every failed try brought his soul closer to Mephisto, who would eventually take it without any effort.

His heart refused to listen. It kept pushing him to try the impossible, searching for any way to save Anya and erase the regret from that year.

Mephisto watched from the edge of the looping world.

He watched as Hawk tried to save Anya, failed, died, and started over. Each attempt used up more of Hawk’s great spiritual power, and every bit he lost was taken in by Mephisto’s Hell.

The soul of a high god…

Mephisto watched Hawk destroy himself again and again, his greed obvious. He licked his lips, imagining the moment he could finally rise above being just a dimensional lord and become a true god.

If he absorbed Hawk’s soul in its entirety, even the worst possible outcome would still grant him genuine divinity.

Ordinary people already saw beings like Mephisto as gods. But dimensional lords knew they were still one step away from true godhood. Because they were so close, they wanted it even more than any lesser supernatural being.

Once Hawk exhausted the last of his immense spiritual power, he would become one more anonymous soul among the countless damned trapped in Mephisto’s Hell.

Mephisto, meanwhile, would ascend using everything Hawk had squandered.

“Keep spending it,” Mephisto whispered. “Abandon yourself to it. Drown in your regret, Lord Phoenix. Your soul is almost mine.”

His voice slid through the darkness, sounding like a demon’s promise.

Time continued to pass.

Under Mephisto’s unwavering gaze, Hawk’s once-overwhelming presence weakened until barely anything remained.

The change showed most clearly in the world made from his regret. At first, every detail looked real. Now the illusion was falling apart so much that anyone could see through it.

It had gone from pristine 4K with every detail intact to a muddy 720p bootleg covered in pixelation.

Hawk collapsed among the ruins of a high-rise.

The world froze around him.

“It’s over, Lord Phoenix.” Mephisto appeared before Hawk without a sound, his face unable to contain his delight. “Your soul belongs to me.”

“…” Hawk looked up from where he sat in the ruins. His eyes were tired, but his face stayed calm.

Mephisto’s smile turned a little confused. “May I ask you something? You knew every attempt to change the outcome would bring your soul another step closer to me. Yet you threw yourself into each one without the slightest hesitation. Why?”

Hawk looked up and met Mephisto’s eyes.

“Because regrets are meant to be put right.”

“Regrets cannot be put right,” Mephisto replied, his expression turning serious. “If they could, they wouldn’t be regrets.”

Hawk nodded.

“I agree. But I still had to try.”

“And you failed.”

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

Mephisto tilted his head. “Oh?”

“You can’t put the past behind you until you’ve faced it.” Hawk looked around at the ruined world. “I tried every solution I could think of, and every path led to the same ending.”

He looked back at Mephisto.

“So this isn’t my regret anymore.”

The instant those words left Hawk’s mouth, the entire world of regret began to collapse…