The days following the disaster of Christmas Eve were the worst the people of New York, and by extension the country of America, had ever faced in their lives.
No joyous bells jingled for the festive seasons as the death tolls were called. No gifts were presented as dead bodies littered the streets in abundance.
The laughter was replaced by cries of sorrow.
The entire world was in shock that no one knew when the New Year came and passed. The fact that something could cause such wide area destruction put all world leaders in states of fear and high panic.
The information that it was done by a mutant was even more of a reason for the leaders to panic as up till now, mutants had never shown such monstrous levels of powers.
The call for the shoot on sight order for mutants was at an all time high as the people affected were grieving and the world at large was in a stage of insecurity.
The mutant race was not only receiving negative reactions but also a healthy amount of positive ones.
It all started with a child claiming how a superhero that could fly saved her.
That was the impetus needed for the public to remember that it was also mutants who helped avert the disaster.
Men of the sea claimed to have seen a goddess controlling the storms and commanding the hurricanes and typhoons to cease. Some had called her a hero while others called her a goddess while some had called her for what she actually was – a female mutant, who against all belief, could control the storms and sky.
Some had seen men and women lifting cars and helping people, others had seen people who could fly, some who had wings like those of angels while some with the visage of that of the devil.
People had never been this open with the knowledge of mutant abilities except for how the government and the news portrayed them. And while it wasn't enough to offset the damage that had been done, it was at least a step in the right direction of how people saw the mutant race.
The idea of super heroes had once again been established and since that day, there had been numerous sightings of mutants with abilities going out of their way to help people either with or without a mask on. Most took it as a sign of atonement while others took it as a way to prevent further hate of the species of empowered humans as a way of saying they had more to offer than receiving biased hate from the ignorant public.
Regardless of the mixed feelings of the public, the government and its leaders took the tragedy as a sign to step up their game in case something like this was to happen again in their country.
And to combat the fear of mutants, they took to the adage of 'fighting poison with poison', and began recruiting mutants into special task forces. Whether they knew it or not or if it was done specifically, society was changing and going by were the days where humans were at the top of the food chain. By doing what they did, they were tying the new species to them with a knot that they hoped wouldn't be loosened in the decades to come. No one wanted a mutant rebellion after what they saw on Christmas Eve.
Speaking of Christmas Eve, a few specific individuals had to spend the night outside of their destroyed home with one of them sleeping through the whole of Christmas on the post-apocalyptic battlefield that was filled with flowing magma.
No one, not a single agent or government official, had the courage to wake him up as not just his size but the way his body shone red as if he was tossed into a furnace. No one knew what was happening to him as he slept but they had all received orders not to wake him up.
No one liked when their sleep time was cut short, no one. And none of the agents were brave enough to find out how the dude that could comfortably sleep in the midst of such environments would be like if his nap was cut short.
Fury had told them all to clear the area which they did even when the officials and news agencies didn't want to but the tremor that they felt as they insisted and the flowing magma worked as the perfect intimidation.
Fury had to put in a lot of effort to keep some parties of interest off the news even when he was opposed in his decisions by the council and the DoD. He had to explain to the President of the United States and other world leaders in the UN why he was adamant about safeguarding the identities of the people who were involved in the event of the Red Eve.
Fury's argument was that these were people they currently had no power over and you could tell how that hard truth provoked the fragile egos of the shadow leaders. Fury had to cringe on how they always thought that a nuke was their answer to everything.
He was only a substantial proof away from betting his other eye that Draul could walk off an A-bomb. He'd seen the man slapping missiles away like they were yesterday's breakfast.
He had to hold himself from screaming at the President when his Advisor proposed the idea of bringing Draul in under acts of patriotism and using his gifts to serve his country like every upstanding citizen.
For the first time since he couldn't remember, Fury's mouth moved faster than his brain. "You motherfucking cocksucker. He's probably as patriotic as salt is to an earthworm. If don't want another State-level disaster, then I suggest you shut the fuck up and sit your pale white ass on that imported Italian leather and let those who have any bit of brain power do the talking."
The entire conference room fell into silence for a few minutes with the advisor looking as if someone was asphyxiating him with a ten inch dildo.
"What about the SENTINEL project? I believe this is the right time to approve of it despite what happened in Russia. I don't think the citizens would remember that Massacre when something like this is still fresh on their minds. With the SENTINEL project, we would have our very own army to combat the rising mutant threat while at the same time not losing our human soldiers in scuffles against mutants." General Thaddeus Ross proposed which made Fury scowl.
Of course Fury wanted the SENTINEL project approved, but what he didn't want approved of was General Ross having authority over it. The man currently had his own small contingent of his loyal soldiers who only took orders from him that not even the President could move them.
General Ross was an old name in the Army which was the reason why most of his actions were overlooked. Out of everyone here, no one could boast of being more patriotic to the American flag as General Ross was. But there was something bad about being too obsessed with something to the point that it becomes a poison which was exactly how Fury felt about Ross.
"That is entirely another issue separate from what we are talking about, General Ross." Fury had to knock the old man down but Ross proved to be too much of a big dog to back down.
"It is, but if it was approved then what we are speaking of would no longer be an issue now would it?" Ross had said with a sardonic smirk.
The back and forth between the two continued on for the next few weeks that followed with them making no headway in concerns on what to do with Draul and the arising mutant vigilantes that had been appearing recently to which Fury said to leave them alone for now as the wiser choice would be to prepare as much as they can to make sure they could have a proper response when, not if, something like this happens again.
While they had the power of information and the public opinion, which they were very adept at in manipulating, they just realized how far they were in might. A fight between three mutants had scarred the entire country and put the world in panic. What then would happen when a group of similarly strong people fought? Would they just sit by and watch as everything was destroyed just because of a scuffle? What use would their wealth and authority matter if they lost their lives to one of these disasters?
Whether they cared to admit it or not, they were scared. Scared of the fact that they could be easily reminded of their mortality. Scared of what would happen when the mutants banded together.
Magneto's Brotherhood weren't given enough threat importance and look at what happened when the leader they thought developing rubber bullets to take him down lost his cool to whatever reason that they weren't privy to and almost sunk the state of New York.
Times were changing and they had to have some kind of combat power to put those empowered back in line.
While the world leaders were brainstorming how to retain every bit of their power in the changing times which was laughable if only they knew what would happen in the future, one of the main characters of the disaster took a trip to the country of Latveria and destroyed the compound palace of it's monarch with the words 'Better hope I don't find you' burned across the entire kilometers of land that Doom's palace was located.
Fury almost had an episode of stroke when he saw that on the news at night when he was sipping on his bourbon. Safe to say he had to abandon his drink as they council were getting the jitters like five year olds at birthday parties.
This happened on New Year's day, taking everyone important by surprise at the blatant act of terrorism but the character in question couldn't care less as he was still pissed that he was now homeless and the prices of houses had skyrocketed with almost a quadruple fold increase.
He had gritted his teeth before paying almost ten million dollars for a new mansion that was four times bigger that his previous one with double the rooms and spaces.
He was placated with the fact that he had looted some of Doom's things as he went around bombing the entire estate, and he had to admit that the megalomaniac had some good stuff. He had been prepared to fight Doom and kill the fucker once and for all as he did with Magneto but was disappointed as he had to return empty-handed, well not really, from Latveria.
That place was like an iron fortress with the amount of technology packed into it but, while he was never a patriot, he could agree with the American sentiment of bombing things to high hell if they proved too arrogant for their breeches.
He found some magical indexes on runes and other pantheons of magic but he couldn't make headway with whatever it meant. Didn't mean he didn't pocket it though.
He couldn't take much with him except for, well a shipload of some of Doom's tech, gold, fucker had a lot of that, magical tomes for when he started studying magic, which was the next on his list, and finally the pièce de resistance, Adamantium.
He wasn't surprised that Doom had a piece of this thicc thighed meat of a metal, well he was but not that much given whose house he was raiding.
He had never felt so much free and unhinged after the battle he had with Doom and Magneto. He could feel he was on the cusp of another evolution but it felt as if he was missing a few things and thankfully Doom pointed it out for him – Magic.
The reason he had slept the whole day after the battle was that the amount of energy particles his body had adapted to and assimilated were astronomical. The fight had been one of a scale he never knew he could contend with nor had he known that Magneto and Doom would get that powerful in such little time. He couldn't blame it all on his negligence as the head suspect was the Marvel-verse and its penchant for crazy power trips.
Doom's magic was what gave him the most trouble as some of the spells that hit him tore through his defense or just outright negated his durability.
Magic was such an hax that it wasn't even funny. There was no higher point or lower point to the craft except the level of mastery of the user. If Doom was that annoying with magic then he could only imagine how powerful the head hunchos like the Ancient One, Dr. Strange, the future Scarlet Witch and Morgan Le Fay were.
Doom wasn't as old as he was in the comics which was the reason why he wasn't stupidly powerful but unfortunately he was still as bat shit crazy as he ever was.
Being exposed to Doom's magic did something to him so Draul wanted to take that chance and see what his next evolution would be like if he added magic to whatever was mixing inside his body.
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