Jay and Domino found themselves back at their Savage Land base. The tension of London, of fighting reality warpers and facing down Mephisto himself, finally released from their shoulders.

  But both stayed quiet. Domino headed to shower off the grime and blood while Jay snapped his fingers, and his bloody, torn clothes vanished, replaced by cozy homewear. In an instant, he was clean and fresh, a perk of having his new powers.

  He got to cooking, whipping up fresh pasta and meatballs while chai simmered on the stove. The familiar motions grounded him after everything that had happened.

  Twenty minutes later, when Domino emerged from the shower in comfortable clothes, her damp hair pulled back, Jay had everything ready. Fresh pasta with meatballs steamed on their plates, and two cups of chai sat waiting.

  They ate in pleasant silence, the kind that came from being comfortable enough not to fill every moment with words. The food was good, the tea was perfect, and for once, neither of them had anywhere else to be.

  After dinner, they wandered to the waterfall at their base's entrance. The Savage Land sprawled before them with its impossible geography. Prehistoric ferns grew alongside flowering plants that wouldn't evolve for millions of years, even a Pteranodon called in the distance.

  The waterfall crashed into the pool below, throwing up mist that caught the moonlight and split it into rainbows. The air smelled like wet stone and jungle flowers.

  They sat at the edge, bare feet dangling over stone worn smooth by centuries of water. Cool droplets hit their skin occasionally as the mist felt good.

  Jay wanted to say something about what they'd been through. About fighting a reality warper, about seeing Domino nearly die hundreds of times, about facing down Mephisto himself and living to tell about it. But the words felt too heavy to put in the air between them.

  Domino seemed to feel the same. She leaned against his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her.

  They stayed like that until exhaustion pulled them under. Slumped against each other at the waterfall's edge, finding peace in each other's warmth despite the chaos they'd left behind in London.

  Meanwhile, in a submarine cruising through Arctic waters, the mood was the exact opposite. The vessel cut through dark depths was running silent and deep, heading nowhere in particular because nowhere was safe anymore.

  The conference room hummed with the sound of the submarine's engines, and red emergency lighting bathed everything in blood-colored shadows. Metal surfaces reflected distorted faces as the air tasted like recycled oxygen and anxiety.

  White Hall spewed racist slurs that would make a sailor blush as he paced the length of the room. Each word clipped and precise, his accent thick with German influence despite decades of hiding it. His face was crimson, veins bulging at his temples. "Scheisse! That mongrel bastard! That fucking untermensch filth! How dare he! How fucking DARE he!"

  Madame Gao sat perfectly still, hands folded over her cane, and fired off the worst curses she could muster in Mandarin. "May his bloodline wither. May his bones turn to ash in unmarked graves. May his name be forgotten by history."

  Sinister sat slumped in his chair, far less confident than usual. His body looked like parchment left too long in the sun, skin pulled tight over bone and cracking at the edges. The diamond mark on his forehead split down the middle as black ichor, thick as tar, leaked from the fractures.

  Surprisingly, Emma Frost was there too, watching the chaos with an expression that suggested déjà vu and regret about her life choices. She examined her nails, diamond hard and perfectly manicured, clearly wishing she were anywhere else.

  John Sublime sat silent at the head of the table, his neutral crime boss expression showing cracks as he realized his options were closing fast.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, watch yourselves." Sublime slammed his fist on the metal table, the sound echoing through the chamber. "You are all people who command forces rivaling nations. Such behavior doesn't suit us."

  "Composure?" Whitehall stopped pacing. His hands clenched. "Our target is out there bringing back the fucking dead! He resurrected twelve hundred worthless pigs! Made those filthy mutants heroes!"

  Madame Gao's weathered hands gripped her cane. When she spoke, her English translated from a deeper thought. "I consulted with the Beast of the Hand. The Great Demon himself. His only reply?" She paused. "Run, hide and do not draw Jay's attention. Otherwise, the Beast will butcher us himself to appease the Power Broker."

  Emma leaned back in her chair. "Darlings, I told my former colleagues in the Hellfire Club not to go after Jay. All you'll get is the most humiliating defeat imaginable. Same thing I told dear Selene before she decided to commit suicide by Power Broker." She examined her nails again. "If I'd known you lot were planning this clusterfuck, I would've stayed far, far away. But here we are. The sorriest collection of has-beens and never-weres I've ever had the misfortune to sit with."

  Sinister let out a weak, broken laugh. His voice carried traces of theatrics even in defeat. "Heheheh, the White Queen, reduced to a frightened Bitch. How utterly delicious. How the mighty have fallen."

  Emma's hands turned diamond. She leaned forward, grabbed Sinister by his collar, and lifted him partially from his seat. Her voice dropped, sharp as glass. "What was that, you dying mutt? Look at your condition before you talk! Where's your pomp and shadow now, Mister Sinister?"

  Sinister grimaced. His damaged face twisted, the diamond mark splitting further, leading to more ichor leaking down. "I was this close, dear Emma. This fucking close to eliminating that pestilent nuisance and his whore! Had it not been for his newfound decay powers, I had my masterpiece prepared. The Darwin Chimera was perfection incarnate. Absolute perfection!" He coughed. Black fluid speckled his lips. "Then, when I awakened in another cloned body ready to strike again, those damned X-Men destroyed every single one of my bases. Coordinated strikes during the invasion. I was caught completely blindsided. This broken shell is all I managed to escape with. If I were in my prime, I would have shown you cunts where..."

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "Enough!" Sublime pointed at Sinister, then at Whitehall. "And you, Nazi scum, watch your fucking tone. I understand everyone's restless, but all hope isn't lost yet."

  Emma scoffed, releasing Sinister. He collapsed back into his chair like a puppet with cut strings. "Get off your high horse, darling. We're defeated before we could even make a proper move. Accept it gracefully and let's all go our separate ways before this gets even more embarrassing than it already is."

  Sinister activated the hologram projector built into the table. The room filled with blue light as footage played of X-Men destroying his bases with military precision, with coordinated and simultaneous strikes.

  In one clip, remains of Sinister's original body were visible. Tumors grew across the flesh, accelerating and spreading like wildfire. The body bloated, distorted and collapsed into itself. Became nothing but a blob of cancerous mass and pus.

  "That's what he did to my original body." Sinister's voice hollowed out. "Turned me into a fucking tumor from the inside out. An elegantly vicious solution, I must admit. Rather poetic, don't you think? The geneticist undone by his own biology." He leaned forward. Ichor dripped onto the table. "Not to mention, he possessed technopathic abilities strong enough to take complete control of my base's systems and weapons. Turned my own creations against me. And he gifted Silver Samurai's tachyon field to that Thurman bitch, rendering my Savage Land mutates completely fucking useless."

  The display shifted to the Battle of New York when thousands of enhanced individuals appeared simultaneously. Whitehall stood, slammed his hands on the table. His accent thickened with rage, and knuckles whitened on the table edge.

  "That mongrel bastard not only stole control of the narrative by acquiring some devil's reality-bending powers, but he created hundreds of thousands of mutants and Inhumans! Teleported thousands of them to New York to aid those so-called heroes!" His voice cracked. "Our decades of propaganda! Generations of carefully crafted work! Turned utterly fucking useless overnight! Now they're seen as heroes! HEROES! The subhuman filth are heroes now!"

  The footage changed to people being resurrected and interviewed by news crews. They were crying, laughing and speaking of what they'd seen beyond death.

  Madame Gao spoke, her formal cadence never wavering despite the content. "Most astounding of all, he brought exactly twelve hundred people back to life. We managed to acquire six of them for study. Six others remain missing, but those we captured..." She paused, fingers tightening on her cane. "The Hand has lost almost all ground in New York, replaced by the Cult of the Lightbringer. They call him the Honoured One, Bringer of Life, Luck, and Heroes. The desperate have hope now as now his cult has followers across the globe, competing with orthodox religions and growing without him lifting a finger to promote it."

  The hologram shifted to London's British Museum parking lot. Jay stood surrounded by mutilated bodies.

  Emma took over, her voice carrying that sharp edge and brutal honesty she was known for. "Finally, this evening's entertainment. Notice who's dead among the carnage. Jim Jaspers, the up-and-coming politician we paid quite handsomely to push his anti-superhuman campaign. Well, this is his current condition. Rather terminal, I'm afraid." She examined her nails again. "Also, the psychic feedback I'd been receiving from Selene? It's completely gone. So you can forget the mistic path to revenge, darlings. That avenue is closed."

  Oppressive silence fell, and only the submarine's engines hummed.

  Sublime's phone pinged, and as he read the message, his face went white. He threw the phone, and it accidently hit Whitehall square in the nose.

  Blood streamed from Whitehall's nostrils. He clutched his face, swearing in German.

  "Damn it all!" Sublime's voice cracked. His carefully maintained composure shattered completely. "Millennia of work! MILLENNIA! Coming apart because of one fucking man!" He stood, paced, and ran hands through his hair. "Now I have Magneto and his Brotherhood systematically destroying my facilities one by one, and they're closing in too close for comfort! They are hunting us!"

  Emma stood frustrated and tired. "I believe this is my cue to exit, gentlemen, and I use that term loosely. It's been absolutely dreadful, and I mean that sincerely. Do try not to get yourselves killed in whatever desperate scheme you're about to concoct, or at least leave me out of it."

  She walked toward the door. Behind her, voices rose again.

  Sinister's voice cut through the chaos, suddenly energized despite his condition. "Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Before we descend into complete hysteria, might I propose a solution? A way Forward?"

  Everyone turned.

  Sinister leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with something dangerous. "The Power Broker's reality-bending capabilities. Where did they originate? Not from his documented mutant abilities, surely. Those were well-catalogued before New York. Technopathy, yes. Healing, certainly. Power theft, obviously. But spontaneous reality manipulation on a cosmic scale? That's new. That's recent. That's..." He smiled. The expression grotesque on his damaged face. "That's stolen."

  Whitehall wiped blood from his nose. "What are you suggesting, you cryptic bastard?"

  "During the invasion, before his grand performance, there was a significant energy and dimensional anomaly at the Baxter Building. And Richards, as we all know, recently had a most interesting addition to his family." Sinister's smile widened. "A child. An infant. Born during the chaos."

  Madame Gao's eyes narrowed. "The Richards baby."

  "Precisely. Franklin Richards. And if my calculations are correct, if the genetic markers align as I suspect they do..." Sinister's voice dropped, theatrical and dark. "That child possesses reality-warping capabilities that would make even our dear departed Selene look like a fucking parlor magician. The Summers-Grey genetic line combined with Richard's brilliance? The Van Damme mutation potential? Oh, the possibilities are absolutely exquisite and intoxicating."

  Sublime sat back down slowly. "You think Jay got his powers from the baby? Stole them from an infant?"

  "I think Jay stole them. Or temporarily absorbed them to ensure the baby's safe birth. The mechanics matter less than the result." Sinister's fingers drummed on the table, leaving ichor smears. "If we could acquire that child's genetic material, study his DNA, replicate his capabilities..." He laughed, the sound wet and wrong. "We wouldn't need to fear the Power Broker. We could create our own. Loyal to us."

  Whitehall leaned forward. "The Baxter Building is a fortress. Richards would never allow..."

  "Richards is also a new father. He's distracted and vulnerable. And babies require checkups, vaccinations, and blood tests." Sinister's smile was predatory. "All we need is one corrupted doctor, one compromised nurse and one vial of blood. Hell, we could even grab some from a soiled diaper if we're desperate enough."

  The remaining villains sat in red-lit silence. Sinister's proposal hanging in the air like poison gas.

  Sublime looked at Whitehall. Whitehall looked at Gao. Gao stared at Sinister.

  The submarine dove deeper as arctic waters pressed against the hull.

  Magneto was hunting them somewhere above, and Jay's cult spread across the world. Leaving their decades of work crumbling.

  And in that moment of desperation, with everything falling apart, Sinister's monstrous proposal didn't seem quite so monstrous anymore.

  It seemed like the only option left.