Born in Fire!

by EgyptianDio

Summary:

Born in blood and fire, scarred by priests, destined to whatever I want. I am Hiro Kala, the son of Hulk and the brother of Skaar. And this is my story!

Warnings:
-Strong to OP MC
-Harem
-Morally ambiguos MC
-Son of the Hulk MC
-Mutant MC
-Waifu Catalog used as CYOA(but no mind controlling waifus)

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

"Skaar, get over here!" I yelled at my brother and watched as the grayish green Goliath walk over to my side.

 

"Sorry brother, I was merely curious."

 

"We are on a different planet Skaar, your curiosity might be warranted but so is caution." I said with a sigh as I patted my brother's arm, which was big enough to crush my head.

 

I was Hiro Kala; the son of Hulk who was born in blood and fire, scarred by priests. Though I used to be just an average Joe before I died.

 

Dying was unpleasant, so I have no interest in explaining the details of my death. But after I died, I met some not so average Joe who claimed herself to be a goddess that was going to reincarnate me into another world.

 

My first reaction was to lay down and try to sleep due to a distorted logic that if I went to sleep in a dream I would wake up in the real world. Self proclaimed goddess was not amused.

 

After she managed to convince me that it was not a dream and that I really had died, she gave me a sheet with options for my next life that suspiciously looked like a Waifu Catalog with only the mind control aspects removed. The goddess of my reincarnation was super lazy.

 

Even so, not one to look at the gift horse in the mouth; I filled the sheet and gave it back to her so that I could start my new life.

 

It would have been far nicer if my life didn't start by fucking burning!

 

It was my fault, deciding to be born as one of the villains so that I could prevent his atrocities and make a life for myself; I had decided to be reborn as the son of Hulk. The one who wasn't born a Hulk. Born when the bomb on Sakaar killed our mother Cairera Oldstrong and separated me from my brother.

 

Skaar had survived due to our mother protecting us with her Old Power and his own Hulk like physiology, I on the other hand survived due to mother's womb hardened by her power and me using the power I had within me along with the defenses I had purchased. It took me a while longer than Skaar to finally emerge from the fires of Sakaar and when I did I had been... disoriented. Disoriented enough when a mad shadow priest walked up to me, I did nothing and the bastard tattooed my face.

 

I knew that he thought he was doing the right thing, that me being branded would lead to my soul living forever after my death or some similar mumbo jumbo from his weird religion.

 

Hiro Kala of the original Earth-616 universe would have kept walking and then found by some barbarian who would enslave him. Starting a journey where he obtained the Old Power, decided that it should be purged from the universe, led to the death of several planets and finally die after trying to destroy earth but getting stopped by his father, brother and the rest of the Hulks.

 

I had no interest in that, I wanted my brother and help him avoid some less than pleasant decisions cause that was my duty as the older brother; completely ignoring the fact that he actually had gotten out of the womb first but that didn't matter.

 

I had three different templates of ridiculously powerful beings, so finding my brother hadn't taken that long. Convincing him to actually wear pants had actually taken longer.

 

My brother was a... simple creature when I met him. When he got hungry, he would eat. When he got tired, he would sleep. When he got mad, he would attack. That was pretty much it, but he started to... modernize(?) after our meeting. He understood that I was his brother, that I wanted to help him. It still took a while before he stopped growling but by the time our accelerated growth had reached to the point where he looked like a short version of our father with long hair,  he could finally speak like a normal person. He didn't speak much to anyone who wasn't me though. Not even old Sahm.

 

Old Sahm had been a nice guy, a bit misguided and put too much stock in our blood as the sons of Hulk but he just wanted there to be a future for Sakaar; a future that the people were going towards under the rule of my father before he got betrayed by Miek.

 

Kinda felt bad about not caring about such a thing myself.

 

No, what I cared about was my family. My dumb brute of a brother had grown on me, I wouldn't let him be a pawn for anyone's schemes. For that, we would take the Old Power.

 

After a long journey with the locals who thought that we would save them, we ended up on the rock of something something whose name I could not be bothered to remember and we got the Old Power. Brother tested it first, by summoning a pillar of lava and using it to incinerate the red piece of shit that had planted the bomb that killed our mother.

 

I on the other hand, took a more... gentle approach to our new power. Using it to call out our mother, whose spirit dwelled in the planet.

 

It was... nice. Cairera may have been far too brutal by human standards, but I could see the love she held for us.

 

So of course everything went to shit.

 

No, shit wasn't enough to describe what happened.

 

Nothing could truly describe the Galactus!

 

Fucking Silver Surfer, claiming that Galactus could be sated for a very long time if he ate our planet that housed the Old Power. A nice line of thought for trillions who lived on other planets, not so much for the duo of champs whose mother's spirit lived in the planet.

 

I had... I had lost control, threatened the Surfer that if he didn't take Galactus away, I would blast him with Old Power and addict him to it. Making seek out planets with our power to sate himself while I would go on a quest to destroy dozens of planets for each of the hundreds he claimed that the sacrifice of our world would save.

 

I hadn't seen the look of fear on mother's face, but damn I felt it when she blasted me and my brother through a portal of her own creation. The look of agony in her eyes would forever haunt my dreams, so would the sight of Sakaar crumbling under the power of Galactus. And our mother with it.

 

Fortunately for the Surfer, I had been in front of my brother as we were blasted through the portal. If not I knew that Skaar would have tried to blast Galactus with Old Power, making him addicted to the energy just like I had threatened the Surfer.

 

And now we were here, on Earth. The home of our father.

 

"Come on Skaar, let's find our old man." I said with a sigh as I walked towards the random direction I had picked, followed by my grumpy brother.

Chapter 2: Chapter 2

"So, you're saying that Bruce's kid from the planet you and the Illuminati sent him to, who was supposed to be dead due to the bomb the bug who claimed to be his friend planted and killed Bruce's wife, is here." Jennifer Walters, aka She Hulk, said as she put on the Fantastic Four uniform Ben had given to her while they were flying in the hero family's flying car. Nice of them to bring it since Jennifer had been half naked in her ripped pajamas after she woke up in the middle of the night as the She Hulk and started to run towards something before she even realized what was happening.

 

"First of all, we were trying to send him to a peaceful plane with no sentient life; not to a hellhole like Sakaar. But yes, about an hour ago; our sensor picked up a huge concentration of energy that we identify as the Old Power of the Shadow People of Sakaar, followed by another mass that has Gamma radiation that has been moving, Hulk's child has survived, and now it's come to Earth."

 

"They've come to Earth." Jennifer corrected Reed Richards, much to his confusion.

 

"What?"

 

"It's a boy, two boys."

 

"Two?! How do you?"

 

"Don't ask me. But this happened to me before, right before Hulk came back to Earth. I woke up in the middle of the night and I just knew, everything was about to change." Jennifer said with a look of melancholy on her face as their transport sped towards the location of the energy readings, thinking about her cousin's sons.

 

 

"Oh fuck." I muttered as I watch my brother glare towards the chopper that housed the sniper that had just shot a coyote. Skaar may not care much about the puny people, but he cared about animals; especially those who, as far as he knew, didn't hurt anyone.

 

"Brother, please don't." I said with a sigh, already knowing that he wasn't listening to me as he leaped at the chopped with his sword drawn. Only for my eyes to widen as my brother was shot down by a red beam of energy. Followed by a flying car carrying the Fantastic Four and a man with a very familiar visor on his eyes.

 

#Few minutes ago#

 

"What is this supposed to be?" Jennifer said as she glared at the very high tech looking spear in Reed's hand.

 

"A DNA collection spear. Pierce his hide and I'll be able to calculate what it will take to knock him out." Reed explained as if it was a perfectly normal thing.

 

"Reed, if you are expecting me to stab a baby, I will punch you to next state." Jennifer growled at the smartest man on the earth.

 

"If my calculations are correct, that 'baby' weighs at least four hundred pounds. But be assured that we don't intend to just jump in and stab them. That's why we need you, you are their blood relative and the least threatening powerhouse I know."

 

"Thanks, I think."

 

"What I'm trying to say is that you're the best person I can think of to be their first contact with humanity. But you need to understand the stakes as well." Richards said with a glare as he put the spear down.

 

"Ever since the Hulk's war, we have only seen the dumb Hulk personality."

 

"Always my fave." Johnny Storm chimed in with a laugh.

 

"I personally like the gray version better." Ben Grimm also added his two cents from the driver's seat.

 

"Yeah, because he's the only one you ever beat."

 

"I think Bruce is suppressing the insanely angry 'Green Scar' persona that attacked us." Richards continued as he ignored the conversation between his teammates.

 

"Maybe because he remembers almost sinking the entire Eastern Seaboard with a step. But right now, Hulk and his sons are making a beeline towards each other. If the Hulk and his sons meet and they somehow manage to awaken the 'Green Scar'..." Richards trailed off and Jennifer finished it for him with a grim look on her usually beautiful face.

 

"You're afraid they might break the world." At that Richards could only nod.

 

"That's why I have Sue taking on Hulk alone. She's using her forcefields to slow him down without him even realizing it. And also why we haven't notified any government, we can not risk any escalation. We need to keep the children and Hulk separate and more importantly, calm." Richards explained and Jennifer could only nod at that. She loved her cousin and wanted to meet her new nephews but her emotions couldn't blind her enough to think that the leader of Fantastic Four was wrong.

 

Breaking the world was a very real possibility.

 

"Don't mean to interrupt you two, but we got company." Ben said as he looked at the radar of the flying car and then a very big shadow fell down upon them. Courtesy of...

 

"Doesn't that belong to the X-Men?" Jennifer asked as she tried to keep her hair put of her face as it blowed by the wind generated by the Blackbird above them.

 

"What are the chances they are here for some sort of holiday trip?" Jennifer asked with a pained expression, already knowing the answer to that question as the doors to the cargo compartment opened; revealing the battle ready forms of Cyclops and Wolverine.

 

"Please tell us you guys are here for some sort of holiday trip." The leader of the X-Men asked with a slouch of his shoulders as he jumped from the Blackbird to the flying car.

 

"We wish." Jennifer said with a huff.

 

"Cyclops, is there a reason you came all this way?" Richards asked, not exactly sure how to interact with the mutant leader who had been getting colder and colder since the day... the day Wanda had almost wiped out the mutant race.

 

Cyclops looked like he was contemplating whether he actually wanted to tell them the reason he was there for a moment before sighing and pulled out a device.

 

"It's Cerebro... it detected a new mutant." He said, much to the shock of everyone on board.

 

"A new, I thought that..." Richards trailed off, realizing that the topic he was about to bring up wasn't exactly one that Cyclops would take kindly to.

 

"Yeah, so did we. But just a while ago, we detected a new mutant. Me and the rest of the X-Men are here to find him, or her." He said as he gave them the device and the eyes of the leader of Fantastic Four widened.

 

"Scott, I think there is something you need to know." Richards said as he explained their current situation, cursing the fact that the coordinates for both of their targets being too close.

Chapter 3: Chapter 3

"He doesn't seem happy." Wolverine said as his claws popped out of his knuckles with a snikt.

 

He wasn't happy to be here, his past with Bruce Banner had taught him one thing about Hulks very well. When there was a Hulk and a Wolverine in close space, Wolverine always got hurt.

 

But there were no other options since the coordinates of the newest mutant, the first since the M Day after Hope, was right beside these new kids of Hulk. Which prompted Slim to be even more proactive in finding this mutant, calling Emma and Colossus as well. And now they were at the coordinates with the one thing Wolverine had feared when he learned the situation in front of him.

 

There were no kids other than the Hulk junior who just got shot down by Slim after trying to slash a chopper and a young man who looked far too gray with tattoos on his face. Meaning...

 

"Slim, I think that kid might be the new mutant." Wolverine told his old friend who just scowled, likely coming to the same conclusion as he had.

 

"And I think you might be right." The leader of the X-Men said with a sigh as the She Hulk and the three members of the Fantastic Four jumped off of the car and tried to reason with the sons of Hulk.

 

"How long till Emma and Colossus get here?"

 

"Magik will bring them here, so not too long."

 

"Why didn't we come here with Magik?" Magic portals were pretty damn useful after all.

 

Unfortunately, before Wolverine could get his answer, the Thing slammed back into their car in the air; courtesy of the Hulk junior who was now drawing his sword.

 

"You want to kill us?!" The Conan look alike yelled.

 

"Believe me, that sounds more and more appealing every second!" Human Torch said as he dodged the bullets coming from the new choppers, belonging to military that didn't seem happy with having a Hulk in their backyard.

 

"Send us your king! Send us the Hulk! Send us our father!" The long haired Hulk kept yelling as he slashed through tanks.

 

"Not today, bub!" Wolverine yelled as he jumped towards the Hulk junior with his claws ready to stab him, only to be stopped by a wall of earth that hadn't been there a second ago.

 

"Apologies, but I would like it better if you would keep those claws away from my brother." The gray one said as he walked towards Wolverine, his hands behind his back and his eyes glowing an eerie blue as energy of of same color danced around him.

 

"Any chance you can have your brother stop destroying everything bub?" Wolverine said as he got back up with a backflip and ready to fight, mutant or not; this was still supposed to be Hulk's kid.

 

"He is somewhat agitated, it's better to just let him let it all out." The gray young man said with a shrug.

 

"Will that be before or after he ends up killing someone?" Cyclops said as he jumped down, his hand on his visor in order to join the battle at any moment.

 

"Hmm, good point." The son of Hulk said and turned back into the ongoing battle between his brother, the military and the Fantastic Four.

 

"It is about time we ended this anyway." He said as he raised his hands, crackling with bluish energy, before slamming them down on the ground and then...

 

...everything shook.

 

The earth beneath the tanks caved in and trapped them in newly made holes while large hands made out of stone rose from the ground and caught the choppers and jets, bringing them down to earth, somehow without destroying them.

 

"I believe, this is sufficient." The gray son of Hulk said with a smile while all the heroes in the clearing looked at him with shock except for the other son of Hulk, who just came back to his brother's side with an expression that could only be identified as smug.

 

"Now then, I believe that we all started off on the wrong foot as you people would say. So let's start again; greetings. My name is Hiro Kala and this is my brother Skaar." He said as he gestured to his far larger brother.

 

"We are here to meet our father, do you happen to know where he is?"

 

---

 

Honestly, our first contact with the locals had been worse than I had hoped but better than I had feared.

 

Sure, Skaar had destroyed some tanks and a chopper; not to mention he had tried to smash the three members of Fantastic Four and our aunt. I on the other hand destroyed the tanks Skaar hadn't and flexed on their military air vehicles but no one had actually died. So I'd say things didn't go as bad as it could have.

 

"So, anyone here who know where our father is?" I asked with a smile, trying to appear as harmless as I could after destroying a small army unit. I think I was succeeding.

 

"Ok, Hiro…" The green giantess started to say before I interrupted her.

 

"Please, call me Kala. Hiro doesn't really feel right. Also, please tell me that you aren't my sister." I 'begged' her with a look of horror while snickering mentally, her expression of shock was super amusing.

 

"Wait wha, no! No, I'm not your sister. I'm Jennifer Walters, your dad's cousin!" She said while flailing her arms around in panic.

 

"Oh, then it is nice to meet you aunt Jen. Skaar, come here and meet aunt Jen." I nodded before pulling my brother towards us, likely a bizarre sight for anyone. My brother needed someone to interact other than me, who could be better than the She Hulk?

 

"Humph." Not that Skaar seemed to share my sentiment as he just grunted and turned away, Stan Lee help me deal with this overgrown baby.

 

"Ok Kala, about your father, there are a few things you need to know..." Cyclops tried to say something, likely try to dissuade me and my brother from meeting our father, before he was interrupted by Reed Richards' scream.

 

"Johnny, I need you in the air! Now!" The so called smartest man alive yelled and we all reflexively looked up, to see several planes dropping bombs on us.

 

That wouldn't do.

 

"Excuse me for a moment." I said as I crouched and laid my hands on the ground while simultaneously tapping into the power I had gotten through the Enkidu template and the Old Power I had inherited from my mother.

 

The powers I had gotten through the templates were... weak. No, weak wasn't the right word. They were powerful but I had gotten them, underpowered, nerfed even. There wasn't much I could do about that with Nate Grey or Strange Supreme templates until I properly trained with them under experts of their field, Enkidu on the other hand.

 

Enkidu's powers were connected to the earth, he himself had been crafted by the gods using clay, he could create an armory that could even go against the Gate of Babylon. The Age of Babylon. And I could, for a short amount of time, obtain that power through supercharging myself with the Old Power.

 

So I tapped into those powers and let them flow through the earth; creating dozens of swords, spears, axes, chains...

 

"HAH!"

 

...and let them fly up and destroy the bombs before they could reach halfway through their destination, detonating them in the air.

 

I could feel the gazes of everyone on me, they were... cautious.

 

I didn't dislike that.

 

Before I could say anything, a blue circle appeared on the ground and then rose up, revealing three more of the famous X-Men; Magik, Colossus and Emma Frost.

 

"Hmm, I feel like we missed the action." The White Queen said, her voice seductive and sensational. Shame that she was in a relationship.

 

"Oh do not worry miss, we were just about to start our conversation." I said with a smile, putting my hands behind my back once more.

Chapter 4: Chapter 4

This... this complicated things.

 

When Reed Richards had came here in search for the sons of Hulk, he was expecting children who were like their father. They were after all, supposed to be less than a year old; simply growing faster physically shouldn't allow them to mature that fast. Meaning they likely would be like Hulk as he was before the war, childish with too much power.

 

He had been right when it came to one of the boys too, Skaar had been very much like his father even if the sword was something of a surprise but that was likely simply an effect of his environment. Sakaar was considered to be a barbaric planet after all.

 

Hiro Kala on the other hand... he was, in a way, very much like his father as well. Except the gray young man seemed to have taken from both of his fathers, Bruce Banner and Hulk.

 

The young man seemed quite mature and sophisticated, much more than Reed had expected from anyone from Sakaar. At first he had thought that he was merely the brain of the brothers with his brother bringing the muscle, making a powerful team.

 

Instead the boy showed an impressive control over the energy the people of Sakaar had dubbed as the Old Power and demonstrated that he wasn't helpless without his brother against their attackers.

 

Then, right after they were about to reach an understanding, that prick Osborn had his people bomb where they were standing in order to 'protect the people from the rampage of the Hulk', if Reed ever got a chance to meet the morons who put Norman Osborn to a position where he could control SRA and the Avengers Initiative, he would punch them like he used to punch Victor.

 

He had hoped that a combined effort from Johnny and Scott Summers could deal with the bombs before they could reach the ground but that had been unnecessary as Hiro Kala had once more, shown an incredible power over the earth as he had used projectiles to destroy all of the bombs at once.

 

But the boy's smile and mannerisms... they scared Reed. They reminded him of the way some of the most dangerous men held themselves, men like Victor von Doom.

 

Such a thing, combined with the potential Hulk strength and a cosmic power wasn't something Reed wanted to imagine, one Dr Doom was enough.

 

"Apologies, mister... tights wearing man whose name I don't know. May I?" And the current cause of Reed's stress took the communication device that was connected to Norman Osborn from his hand without waiting for an answer.

 

"Now then, who am I speaking to?"

 

"Oh my, quite something aren't you? My name is Norman Osborn, I am..." before he could complete his sentence, the current leader of the bastardized version of the Avengers was interrupted by Kala.

 

"The man who thought that it was a good idea to drop bombs on me and my brother." Sakaaran boy said with a raised eyebrow.

 

"Oh that? I do apologize for it, as far as I was aware neither you or your... brother were keen on civilized conversation and more keen on destruction. So I had to do it, in order to protect the people of this planet from an unknown threat. I am sure you understand that." The former Goblin said through the device and Reed grit his teeth in anger, not buying into the reasons Osborn was giving. Worse, Kala seemed to believe going by the easy going smile on his face. This was bad, Osborn already had Sentry with him, if he somehow managed to get his evil hands on the sons of Hulk...

 

"I am surprised. Out of all the tales of humanity my father has told the people of Sakaar, he seems to have left out your very unique biology."

 

"...excuse me?" Reed could feel the confusion in Osborn's voice, he was feeling it himself.

 

"I am talking about the rectum you have inside your mouth. For I can think of no other way for so much shit to come out of one's mouth as they speak."

 

And then there was silence, broken only by the muffled laughter of Ben, Johnny, Cyclops and Wolverine.

 

"Boy... do you have any idea who I am?" Osborn asked, with a dangerous edge in his voice.

 

"If you mean your identity and your past, no. No I don't know who you are. But I think I have a pretty good idea about what you are." Kala said with a smile.

 

"You… are a tiny little man, one that likely surrounds himself with those who hold true power; trying to trick yourself into believing that you are one of them. That you too are strong. But deep down, you know that you are not. That you are a mere pebble before mountains, that you don't truly matter. And tonight, you were the idiot who thought that he could get away with trying to bomb my brother. Years later, you will be a part of the book written in order to warn those who think they can hurt my family. And even in that, you will be as you are now, a footnote."

 

And then there was silence, no one could speak. It felt like the world itself stopped as Reed Richards and the rest of the gathered heroes listened to the son of Hulk mock the man who controlled the Avengers.

 

"...I hope you understand that you will pay for those words, boy."

 

"And I hope you enjoy the rest of your days, man of Nor, for one can never know how many they have left." With those last words, Hiro Kala crushed the communication device with his grip.

 

"My... apologies, but I believe these things needed to be said." The son of the Hulk said with a hand behind his head as he sighed.

 

"Hah! The day one needs to apologize for putting a sleazy bastard like Norman Osborn in his place, is the day the mrs. Grimm's blue eyed boy here will stop eating burgers and playing cards!" Ben laughed as he patted the boy on the shoulder with his enormous rocky hands.

 

"Though... you did just made an enemy out of a man with many connections." Emma Frost said as she walked up to them.

 

"Let him come." Were the boy's only words. Reed didn't like that, he needed to make him understand the danger of what he had done. He needed to....

 

"Reed... Reed!" Before he could think anything else, the voice of his wife reached him from his earpiece.

 

"Sue? What is it?"

 

"Reed! Get out of there! I lost control! I lost him! He is coming"

 

*THOOM*

 

And then the earth around them exploded, debris flying everywhere, as a newcomer landed near them.

 

"I'm sorry Sue, but he's already here." Reed said with a pained expression.

 

The Hulk was here.

 

"Well well..." And there were only two who didn't seem to mind that among them.

 

"Hello father."

Chapter 5: Chapter 5

There were many words that one could use in order to describe the Hulk. But the moment I met him, the moment I met my father, only one word came to mind.

 

Strong.

 

Even though I knew of the existences like Galactus, Knull, Black Winter and all the other ridiculous beings that inhabited this universe; just for a moment, I believed in Hulk's claim to be 'the strongest one there is'. That was the kind of presence he had.

 

And he was my father. And he was glaring at us.

 

"You. Like a buzzing in my ears. Calling for the Hulk. Well now you got him, so show yourself."

 

Yeah, this wasn't going good. But still wasn't that bad, I just had to stop Skaar from… where was Skaar?

 

"Thought you'd be bigger." In the one moment I had taken my eyes off of him, my brother had managed to get right in front of our father with his sword ready in hand.

 

"What long hair want?" Hulk grunted and I knew that if I let this continue, it would end up either with Saar's sword through Hulk's chest and Hulk cracking my brother open like an egg. The latter, more likely than the former. So I didn't.

 

"Skaar, calm down." I said as I jumped between the two green Goliaths.

 

"Stand aside brother."

 

"Skaar, your rage against him is misplaced. You know what mother said, as far as he knew; we were dead." I tried to reason with Skaar, his anger towards our father due his absence while we suffered on Sakaar was, while understandable, misplaced. It was born out of his need of blaming someone for his misfortune and father being a proper target for that rage.

 

"Mother also said that he was a hero. Tell me; what kind of hero leaves his sons to burn, his people to bleed and his world to die?!" My brother yelled and before I could say anything, the Hulk himself joined the conversation.

 

"Crazy longhair! Why do you bother Hulk with your stupid stories?!" The Hulk yelled at us, seemingly confusing my brother who did not understand that the Hulk in front of us was not truly the Green Scar, not yet anyway.

 

"Please, let us speak. We are..." I tried to say, but before I could so much as blink, Hulk had my face in his hand; looking into my eyes.

 

"Funny eyes... funny... no..." And then there was pain in Hulk's eyes.

 

"Cai... Caiera." Huh, didn't need me to convince him, that's good.

 

"You remember mother's name, do you remember yourself now, Green Scar?" Skaar asked, his sword now resting on his shoulder.

 

"Green Scar... no..." As much as I hated it, I knew where this was going.

 

"You guys might wanna take a few dozen steps back!" I yelled at the peanut gallery of heroes. Just as green aura of gamma energy burst from my father.

 

"WORLD BREAKER!"

 

---

 

It was just as Reed had feared, the meeting between the Hulk and his sons had managed to awaken the Green Scar persona of the Hulk. The persona that had almost destroyed an entire city by merely taking a step.

 

And this time, they didn't have Tony's satellite system or Hulk's cooperation in order to take him down.

 

"Stretch!" He could hear Ben yell at him, bless his old friend's heart. Always looking out for people.

 

"Mister Richards, I hope that you have some sort of plan in order to save the day." Emma Frost said with her hands in front of her face and her body in her organic diamond form in order to protect herself while standing in front of Cyclops.

 

"The gamma inhibitor with me might be able to weaken him a little but it would also be meaningless if we agitate him." Reed admitted, their plan had been to make sure Green Scar wouldn't come out. In hindsight, he really should have made a plan to stop him even if he came out but such a plan was impossible to make in the limited time they had.

 

But as he looked around in order to find something that would give him some sort of idea to stop the Hulk from breaking the world, the energy coming from the green Goliath subsided with the Hulk's hand on his head.

 

"No... no..." And then just for a moment, the Hulk turned back to Banner before once more turning into the Hulk, this time without the aura of world destroying energy.

 

"Hulk bored now." The green giant said as he turned around and Reed had to sigh in relief, somehow Bruce had managed to suppress the Green Scar and go back to the Hulk they knew of. And what a day it is that Hulk would be the better option for their lives.

 

"Oh no, I say when we're done." But it seemed like the son of the Hulk didn't think like Reed or anyone else did and had created a wall of earth in front of the Hulk.

 

"Now, just listen for a..."

 

"GO AWAY!" The Hulk yelled as he clapped his hands, sending both of his sons away with a shockwave and then leapt away. The son who had more similarities with his father looked like he was about to jump after him before the other son grabbed his arm.

 

"Don't. I don't know why we can't reach our father but until we have a proper plan to get him out that is beyond 'punching hard' there is no meaning in going after him."

 

"Smart choice bub." Wolverine said as he walked up to them. A side effect of his healing factor, he was less afraid of getting punched by Hulk class being than they were.

 

"Now, until you form that plan, there is something me and my friends back there want to talk to you about." The old mutant said as he pointed to his back with his thumb.

 

"What do you say about getting some earthly education?"

Chapter 6: Chapter 6

"Skaar…"

 

"No." My brother grunted at me, looking like he was contemplating whether he could get away with picking me up and pile driving me to the ground.

 

"Brother, I need you to shrink. You are scaring our new friends here." I said as I gestured to the gathered members of the Fantastic Four and the X-Men.

 

"And why should I care?" Skaar's response was immediate and very... Skaar.

 

"Because it is the polite thing to do and we are in a polite society now." I gritted out, sometimes I couldn't help but wish I was one of those normal people who didn't have to deal with their little brothers becoming rebellious little shits before they were even five.

 

"One day, you'll be like that with Franklin and Valeria."

 

"Shut up Johny." I could hear the bickering between the Storm siblings, using my current situation as a mean of amusement for themselves. One day I would get my vengeance for that, but now...

 

"Skaar, please. I know you don't exactly like being..."

 

"Puny." My brother interrupted me with a grunt with his arms crossed over his chest.

 

"Yes, that. Because of all the dangers we faced, but you don't need to worry. I am here, if nothing else I can buy you the time you need to transform back if we get back in danger." I said with some calming gestures as my brother kept glaring at me. Looking like I was a particularly ugly bug, but then...

 

...he started to shrink.

 

In a few seconds, the long haired green Goliath was gone. Replaced by a long haired small kid with grayish skin and eyes much like mine. And for the first time in our lives, I was taller than my brother.

 

"Thank you Skaar." I said as I placed my hand on his shoulder.

 

"Humph." He simply huffed as he turned his face away from me, he was just far too adorable for his own good; even with the sword that was far too big for him now on his back.

 

"Come now brother." I said with a smile as we walked up to the plane.

 

---

 

"So, you're saying that I am a mutant?" Kala, the son of Hulk, said with his arm around his now much smaller brother.

 

If she didn't have an amazing self control that had been trained through years as a super hero, a mother and the wife of one Reed Richards; Susan Richards would have been hugging Skaar with a squeal at a pitch only dogs could hear. He just looked so adorable!

 

But she did have self control and also doubted that Kala would have appreciated anyone trying to take his brother from his arms at the moment.

 

"That is how Cerebro identified you as, we will need to do some tests due to your... extraterrestrial heritage, but we are pretty sure that you are one of us." Scott Summers said with a nod with his visor on his face.

 

Susan felt bad about the young man, she remembered the days when he had been quite free spirited and smiling. But then, the tragedy of M Day that almost destroyed his entire race and the many other tragedies he had endured in his life had turned him into a jaded man that just felt... cold.

 

She was also concerned about the way he said 'us'. She knew that the rest of the humanity treated mutants in a way that could never in any way considered to be okay and that they felt the need to stick together for safety, but the way he said it was getting less and less like the way Charles Xavier said it and more like Magneto.

 

"And now you want me to come with you to your, school?"

 

"To be perfectly honest, it is less of a school and more of a base for the remaining mutants to gather in safety." Colossus said, a grim visage on his steel face.

 

"You sure it's a good idea to gather the remaining of anything in one place? Sounds like an invitation for a situation much similar to my mother's murder." Kala said with a deadpan and everyone on the plane had to wonder how exactly he could say such a thing with a straight face.

 

"There is a certain amount of such danger, that is for sure. But there is also strength in unity." Emma Frost, former villainess and the White Queen of the Hellfire Club, said with her legs crossed over one another.

 

"Hmm true that." The son of Hulk said with a nod.

 

"But would attending to this... school of yours, what would be the merit in that? Our goal is after all, properly meeting our father." Kala said and was answered by a snort from Magik, the sister of Colossus.

 

"You would get protection from the people who have a problem with your daddy, numbers of such people are quite high after the last fiasco he caused." The Russian mutant said, not caring about the judging gazes sent towards her way.

 

"While Magik's words are... harsh, she is not exactly wrong. Your father is not exactly a well liked man." Her husband said with a dour expression, likely remembering the Hulk's rampage that had made him and his little boy club decide to send him to space and his latest rampage after he returned for vengeance.

 

"I am aware of that, mister Richards. He wouldn't be exiled if he was well liked." The young man snorted at their direction and Reed looked at him with shock.

 

"You know..."

 

"Your name. Yeah, I do."

 

"Then why did you call me..."

 

"'Mister tights wearing man whose name I don't know'? Because your reaction was funny." The young man said and Susan had to hide her smile behind her hand, her husband deserved to be taken down a peg or two once in a while or he would start making ridiculous gadgets again.

 

"It may not be easy on Sakaar, but learning the names of the quartet who banished my father from this planet was not impossible." And that wiped her smile off of her face. She could also see her husband and everyone in the plane flinch at that.

 

Every one of them other than Magik had experienced Hulk's rage after he returned to Earth. X-Men may not have been there in the battle but she heard that they had fought against the vengeful giant when he had come to their school in search of Xavier.

 

They had gotten off easy, Susan could still remember the shocks from the obedience disk Hulk's friends had placed on her chest as she watched her husband almost got killed by a controlled Tony before he was stopped by the vengeful giant. Hulk's words still ringed in her ears.

 

'We came here for justice, not murder.'

 

How funny that the one invading their planet had been arguably the most human among those in the arena.

 

"The words of the miss have truth in them though, please tell me more about your school."

Chapter 7

"Fascinating." Henry McCoy, in his blue and furry glory, said as he listened to the them tell him about the events of the last few hours as he looked at the sons of Hulk.

 

"To think that you two have managed to survive an explosion while still inside your mother's womb, I had always thought that a child of Hulk would be something beyond our imaginations but this is even beyond that." The blue mutant said as he took several notes on his desk and Scott realized that just maybe, having Hank as the first contact with the school for Kala and Skaar may not have been his decision.

 

Unfortunately, he was the ones with the tools to determine whether Hiro Kala was truly a mutant or not so he had no other choice.

 

"Is he always like this?" Kala asked him with a small glare on his face that was directed at nothing and everything.

 

"No... sometimes he gets annoying." Scott answered, getting a snort of bemusement in return.

 

"Oh, my apologies. I think I got a bit carried away." The furry mutant said with an embarrassed laugh as he scratched the back of his head.

 

"Now, I believe we are here to scientifically make sure that Hiro Kala is a mutant. I am going to need a blood sample for that." He said he started to go through many shelves of his lab.

 

"I am fine with that as long as the blood sample is either destroyed after the check up or at least with me for any kind of experiments on it." The young gray man said with a shrug, seemingly not caring for the weird looks he was getting.

 

"Umm, young Kala, why exactly do you think that we would be experimenting with your blood?" And what kind of life did he live on that planet Hulk was send to in order for that to be his first thought?!

 

"Hmm, what do you mea... oh. Oh! I get it now, you people don't know of the properties my father's blood." The young man said, his eyes wide with realization.

 

"We actually do know a few things about it but something tells me you are thinking of something else." Hank said as he jumped back to his chair, looking curiously at Kala.

 

"On Sakaar, it was father's blood that had given life to the barren lands. From where his blood was spilled, plants with healthy fruits would sprout within a night. Though all of them turned into thorny plants that attacked other inhabitants of the planet after the capital city was bombed."

 

"That... I did not know of? And your blood has such an effect as well?" Hank asked with his hand under his chin and from the gleam in his eyes, Scott knew that they had just lost him to his scientific curiosity.

 

"Hmm, not exactly. While my brother's blood and mine didn't make any plants sprout on Sakaar, the plants that my father left behind had, after absorbing our blood, returned to their original and peaceful nature."

 

"Fascinating, how about..." And that was Scott's cue to leave. He wasn't good with science mumbo jumbo and wasn't selfless enough to stay with Skaar who looked just as confused as him. So he left as quietly as possible.

 

*You seem troubled my love.* A voice spoke to him, not to his ears but his mind. Fortunately he had enough practice with such a situation to reply back.

 

*The kid awakened Hank's science geek side. I had to run.* He could hear Emma laugh inside his mind and wondered how exactly he managed to deserve such a lovely woman.

 

*On a more serious note, have you managed to get anything from our newest students?*

 

*Are you really sure that you want to keep both sons of Hulk instead of only the mutant one?*

 

*I saw the look in his eyes. We try to make him part with his brother, he'll try to tear us apart; Hulk style. Now please answer my question.* Scott thought back at his girlfriend, no intention to budge from his choice.

 

*Very well. The smaller brother, he is a little child. He is mostly confused about everything around him and has a deep love for his brother. Also, he seems to hate and love his father at the same time. I could have gone deeper but his mind was becoming more and more primal like Hulk's so I pulled out.* The White Queen explained.

 

*What about Kala?*

 

*I got nothing.* And that threw Scott a loop, the admission of failure more than the failure itself.

 

*Nothing?*

 

*Nothing. His mind has defenses stronger than anything I have ever seen. I can see that there is a mind but I might as well try to telepathically connect with an artificial intelligence. There is no way for me to get in.* Emma ranted and Scott could feel her frustrations.

 

Scott could understand where her frustrations were coming. Throughout all the time he knew Emma, as a villain and as a hero, she always had been prideful. She had pride in her name, pride in her wealth, pride in her looks, pride in her status as a mutant and most importantly, pride in her powers.

 

There being someone who did not even know that he was a mutant but could make her powers look obsolete, that would sting.

 

*That... might be a problem.* Cause even if he was glad that there was another mutant with them, he wasn't the same idealistic kid who followed Professor around like a lost puppy anymore. He knew that any new mutant had the possibility of deciding that they were the next Magneto and try to 'show' their might as a mutant who persecute against them. A son of Hulk would have twice the reason to hate people.

 

He didn't want to imagine a son of Hulk going villain and there being no easy way to shut them down or at least weaken them with telepathy. That sounded too much like a Juggernaut who was immune to telepaths.

 

*I guess we'll just have to be... extra careful while teaching him.* Scott thought with a mental and a physical sigh.

 

*I'll do that. You go and make sure Hank isn't wasting too much time with science ramblings.* With a groan, Scott went to do exactly that.

 

He really should have just ran away years ago when Xavier made him the leader of the X-Men. Being leader, therefore responsible for every idiot in the team, sucked!

Chapter 8: Chapter 8

"So doc, what's the verdict?" Summers asked as he returned to the room. He seemed kinda depressed, did he break up with Jean?

 

Oh no, Jean is supposed to be dead at the moment. I really should get some information about the current state of the world and the hero community.

 

"Just as the Cerebro said, Kala here is a mutant. He is also a Shadow Person, but still, he's a mutant." At that, I could almost see a weight lift itself from Scott's shoulders. Guess he really was stressed about this. Also, nice to hear that they didn't bring us here only to kick us out, yay!

 

"Though this also brings up the question of his powers." Hank said scratching his head, time to throw him a bone.

 

"I can do this." I said as I levitated several books on his desk. And I didn't even need to have a bookworm with bad hair condition to scold me about my pronunciation.

 

"Telekinesis, interesting. Not exactly uncommon among mutants but you seem to have a good control over it." He said with a smile that would have been far more friendly if he was not a blue furry monster with teeth that resembled the teeth of some of the smaller predators on Sakaar.

 

"Anything else you can do?" Summers asked me, though from his tone I suspected that he suspected something.

 

"I can also hear what people think when I concentrate on it. Also, please tell the beautiful lady friend of yours to keep out of my mind. It isn't exactly a place one should show to a lady so soon after first meeting." I said with a smile and I could hear Hank try to smother his laughter and see Skaar look at me with a tilted head, ahh to be young.

 

"I'll... tell her that." The leader of the X-Men said, looking uncomfortable.

 

"Is there anything that you need?"

 

"Need? Not exactly. Though I would like to have some access to any kind of files you people have about my father." At that, I could see the light dimming in their eyes.

 

"Yeah, about that... young Kala, how much do you know about your father's... actions on this world?" Hank asked hesitantly, almost like asking the wrong thing might set me off.

 

"Not much, I know that he thought that the bomb on Sakkar had killed us and blamed it on you people. Then he left Sakaar in order to get revenge. Considering the fact that you people still have a planet I believe that it is safe to assume that he failed but is currently free with a personality that is very different than the tales of Sakaar." I explained what I 'should' know. It probably would weird them out if I just told them all the stuff I knew about the past of Bruce Banner, not to mention his future.

 

"Well, yes. I guess you could say that. First of all, the bomb wasn't our doing, it was revealed that..."

 

"That Miek the bug did it, yes we already know." I cut him off with a shrug.

 

"Okay... no matter, before your father learned that; he, uhhh... smashed, some very respected people on this planet. He also attacked the school in search of a certain man so he is not exactly well liked at the moment." Hank tried to explain as gently as he could, nice guy. Shame that it was wasted since I didn't care much about it and Skaar wouldn't admit that he liked father until he tried to kill him at least once.

 

"Give me a second." The furry mutant said before he started to look throughout his drawers before he finally got back up with a flash drive between his claws.

 

"This is the last moments of your father's war against us. I think it might allow you to understand the circumstances a bit better." Hank said as he inserted the drive into one of his computers.

 

"Hank..." Summers started to say before he was interrupted by the blue genius.

 

"Oh, I know Scott. But this is private so let us give the kids some space." He said with a forced smile as he pushed the leader of the X-Men out of the door and left along with him.

 

Suspicious, but not my problem. Might as well take this moment to see father beat up and humiliate heroes in digital.

 

---

 

"Hank, I don't think making them watch their father force people into a gladiator match that almost killed them is the best idea. And why do you have a video like that anyway?" Scott asked with a scowl, not happy with the decision of the X-Men's local genius.

 

"They would have learned of it anyway. This way at least there won't be any misunderstandings about us trying to hide information from them."

 

"And don't you think that they might try imitate daddy in some weird way to try to get his approval?"

 

"No." Hank shook his head.

 

"Kala is intelligent. I can see that he does not exactly understand certain things about our world but he seems to learns fast and has enough common sense to know that would be a bad idea."

 

"Ok, fine. Let them watch their daddy smash the Avengers. But why do you have that on a record anyway?" Scott threw his arms up, trying to understand his old friend and failing.

 

Hank stayed silent for a moment, looking like he was deep in thought before he finally started to speak.

 

"Stark and Richard, they are smart. As a matter of fact most of the time smart is the only thing they are. Yet they fucked up." The furry mutant said, much to Scott's shock at his old friend swearing.

 

"They can try to paint it any way they want but the matter of fact is those two, along with Black Bolt and Doctor Strange, fucked up with Hulk. They thought that they were doing the right thing but they fucked up so badly that Hulk put slave chips on people, made those four fight to death and still appeared more human than them." Hank said as he placed his hand on his forehead.

 

"Choices have consequences, no matter how smart the people who make those choices are. I have Hulk's war against them on record because I feel that sometimes I need to remind myself of that. That no matter how smart I am, my decisions will have consequences." Hank said with a sigh before he looked up as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

 

As he looked up at Scott, he couldn't help but wonder. Where had the good old days gone?

Chapter 9: Chapter 9

"So, what do you think?" I placed my hand on Skaar's shoulder as the video finally ended. It wasn't all of the war between Hulk and the Avengers, there were many parts missing. Not like anyone was dumb enough to record the battle between Hulk and Sentry anyway.

 

But in most of the video, father's words were clear. The way he actually talked back to those who tried to talk, the way he clearly stated his reasons, and his brutality. They were all laid before us in the video.

 

"...he did all of that for us." Skaar said, his voice barely audible as he pulled his legs up to his chest and placed his forehead on his knees.

 

It must be hard for him, Skaar was a kind child but he was also a very angry one. The way we grew up on Sakaar, the pain we endured and our banishment by our mother. He wanted to blame it on someone, anyone, and a father who would abandon his children and his kingdom seemed like a good target for his anger.

 

But what we watched now, it proved our mother's words about Hulk being a hero. About him loving us. So now, Skaar could no longer blame him. Meaning that there wasn't a reason for the pain we endured.

 

I put my hand on my brother's shoulder and pulled him close to my chest.

 

"It's okay." I said, as kindly as I could, and Skaar started to cry. This might very well be the first time he really cried. Even when mother had sent us to this planet, Skaar's reaction had been anger. To try to find someone to blame and take his anger out on.

 

This was the first time he couldn't do that.

 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I could hear my brother's words as he kept crying.

 

I would be here for him. I am my brother's keeper after all.

 

---

 

It took a while before Skaar stopped crying. After that, Hank and Scott entered back into the room with sad expressions. Guess they had their own heart to heart while we were watching the video.

 

"So, anything we ought to know?" I asked the furry mutant who looked opened his mouth but was interrupted by the sound coming from one of his computers.

 

"I do now, but do excuse me for a second." He said as he jumped on one the chairs and wheeled towards the computer that had just made the sound. A few seconds later, he turned back to us with a smile.

 

"Whelp, it seems like we may have been a bit hasty with the classification of young Kala's mutation." Hank said, though I could see a small amount of sweat on his forehead.

 

"And our mistake was?" Scott asked with his arms crossed over his chest.

 

"Ahh, it seems he isn't a telekinetic and telepath combo. That is merely a side effect of a... certain kind of energy within him. Energy other than the Old Power that is." He babbled and I could see the sweat gathering around his forehead becoming more and more visible.

 

"And this energy?" Scott asked, glaring from behind his red sunglasses.

 

"Oh, well... It's... the same kind as certain mutants we know of like... like young Franklin Richards or Nate." Oh, seems like he figured it out.

 

"Oh." And going by the hollow but frightened sound Scott made, I would say he understood as well.

 

"Well, uh. Kala, wanna meet some of your soon to be classmates?" Scott asked, a rather forced smile on his face as he desperately tried to change the subject from my powers.

 

"Sure." I said with a shrug. Might as well let them have some time to gather their bearings, so I left the room with Skaar. To an adventure of meeting our new classmates.

 

---

 

"Please say that your computer was wrong." Scott practically begged Hank with a dead tone, the furry mutant wasn't much better.

 

"That your computer was wrong." The local genius of X-Men said with a sigh as he practically melted in his chair. He looked just about done with life and everything it entailed.

 

"A reality warper. The son of Hulk is a god damn reality warper." Scott said, really wishing that somebody else was the leader of the X-Men at the moment. Maybe he could convince Ororo that she would make a good leader? Or Kitty? He would just act like a jerk and then make her the leader when she came into the room with her finger pointing at him as she claimed that he was a jerk.

 

"How long until he destroys everything?" He asked with a sigh while Hank just shook his head.

 

"Not for a very long time. His energy is definitely that of a reality warper but it is rather weak at the moment. It will be quite a long time until he becomes a proper reality warper like those we know of." Hank said with a smile, happy that there was at least one good part of such an occasion.

 

"Ok, so we might be able to help him not destroy everything with a deranged smile. Any ideas?" Scott asked his old friend who looked to be in thought.

 

"I would say encourage him to act more like his father but to be honest, some of Hulk's acts of strength have felt like reality warping to me so that might not be the best decision." Hank said as he pinched the bridge of his nose as he remembered some of the more ridiculous feats of strength done by Hulk.

 

"Great, tell me if you get any ideas to make sure Kala does not turn into the next Scarlet Witch and wipe our race out." Scoot scoffed and Hank had to stop himself from saying that none of that House of M bullshit would have happened if they didn't have a vote on whether to kill her or not in the presence of Quicksilver. Scott likely wouldn't like that.

 

Though thinking of Wanda did give him an idea.

 

"I… may have a proper idea." Scott looked at him and Hank smiled.

 

"Why don't we get some help from the one guy who can warp reality and is still sane to train young Kala. Right after we figure out how to convince him to get help from one of the people who shipped Hulk off to Sakaar."

Chapter 10: Chapter 10

Admittedly, just leaving the room and walking with Skaar may have not been the best plan to meet the students and make friends. Shame since Skaar really needed some friends.

 

But for some reason, the students seemed to be actively staying away from us. Which was strange since I was pretty sure that they were teenagers and teenagers were supposed to be little shits with no understanding of privacy or a sense of self preservation. Two new students should have made them excited and swarm them like thirsty high school girls swarming a Korean pop star.

 

"Hey." Oh, it seems like I have spoken too soon as several people were now approaching us.

 

One of them looked like a run of the mill high school jock. Somewhat muscular and somewhat handsome, definitely forgettable. The girl beside him was less forgettable, mostly because of her neon blue hair. The last guy was the most memorable though, because he was a very big gelatinous mass with a skeleton inside.

 

It was kinda cool, in a weird and gross way.

 

"Hello." I said with a tilt of my head which somehow seemed to make the forgettable jock angry.

 

"Hello yourself. I can't believe that the X-Men would allow you two in the school after what that monster father of yours did." He growled at us, a thin green aura covering his whole body.

 

Now I remembered who he was, Hellion. A student of Emma with telekinetic powers and an all around rich asshole student that every school had. Pretty sure he would later on get some character development and become the jerk with a heart of gold among the young mutants. Or something along those lines.

 

"Nice to meet you too, can I have some names now?" I asked with a raised eyebrow as I slowly stepped between the trio and Skaar. It wouldn't do well if he got mad and tried to smash them.

 

"Julian Keller not that you'll get to use it much."

 

"Robert Herman, also Glob, here with Julian." The giant human jello said as he punched the palm of his hand. I really can't help but wonder how his biology works.

 

"Noriko Ashida, I'm only here to make sure these two doesn't do anything too stupid. Welcome to school by the way." The blue haired girl said with a smirk as she crossed her arms over her chest, only to be glared by Julian.

 

"The hell Surge?! Are you really ok with letting these two into the school after what their father did?!"

 

"We are okay with letting you in even though you assault everyone's eyes with that haircut so I don't see any problems." Noriko snorted and I decided that I liked her sense of humor, the snark was strong in her.

 

"Bah, you're just afraid Surge; and it's pathetic." The living human science show said with a shake of his head, which made us see the shaking of his skull and eyeballs, before rounding at us.

 

"These two are… nothing…" He trailed off as he saw that instead of a gray dude and gray kid, there was a gray dude and a grayish Hulk standing before them. And the grayish Hulk had his teeth bared much like a wild beast.

 

Noriko and Hellion took a few steps back while Glob just fell down on his butt. Honestly, why were they so surprised? They knew that we were the children of Hulk but were surprised when Skaar hulked out? Weird.

 

Though I probably should interfere before something stupid happens.

 

"Skaar, do calm down." I glared up at my brother who looked down at me, I was already missing him being in his kid form.

 

"We will not start fights." I glared up at my brother, we were now students and students could not just go around smashing other students out of class. They smashed idiot bigots who try to invade school.

 

Our glare off continued for a few more seconds until Skaar finally huffed and shrunk back to his adorable form.

 

"Good brother." I said with a smile as I patted him on the head, warning; anyone without doing such a thing without brother privileges may end up losing a finger... or a hand... or an arm.

 

"Apologies, where were we?" I asked as I turned around to the frightened forms of Hellion and Glob along with the less frightened and more amused Surge.

 

"We were introducing ourselves." Noriko said mirthfully with a shake of her head before offering her hand in a shake, covered in some sort of gauntlet.

 

"As I already said, Noriko Ashida. But you can call me Surge if you want."

 

"Well met. I am Hiro Kala, you can call me Kala. And this is my brother Skaar." I said with a smile, Skaar on the other hand just turned his head around.

 

"Sorry, he isn't exactly the most sociable person."

 

"No worries." Noriko shook her head. "I should apologize though, I probably should have stopped those idiots before they could have tried anything." She said with a glare at the retreating forms of Helion and Glob, they had started to make their retreat while I was talking to Noriko.

 

"No worries; I believe the situation was merely, as it is called on this planet, hazing."

 

"Not exactly, be careful. Julian and Glob might be idiots, but they won't be the only one to pull something like this. Your father isn't exactly well liked in the school at the moment, he kinda almost killed us last time we saw him." Noriko said with a frown, I had my own on my face too.

 

"Understandable. Though from what I know, if my father didn't kill anyone; it means he didn't want to kill anyone." This seemed to somehow displease Noriko but before she could say anything, we were interrupted.

 

"Don't bother. Most people here are very delicate when it comes to getting hurt." The words were mocking and they belonged to a girl with blond hair and a sword strapped to her thigh. A girl that I had flew together to this school.

 

"Illyana." Noriko said with a scowl, it looked like the bluenette didn't exactly like the russian mutant.

 

"Hi again, alien boy." Illyana said with a smile, completely ignoring Noriko.

 

"Hello again." I replied with a smile while panicking internally. I had no idea what to make of the magical mutant, especially since I knew that she was one of the strongest people in this school and one of the few who would go for the kill in a fight without a second thought.

 

"Come with me." She said, her smile became mischievous as she grabbed my arm and started to pull me towards her destination.

 

A rather abrupt but... I didn't really dislike it. Especially since her pulling me after her gave me the perfect opportunity to watch her back, if you know what I mean.

Chapter 11: Chapter 11

Noriko Ashida, codename Surge, normally would have made sure to get away from Illyana Rasputin whenever the russian mutant came anywhere near her. It was like that with most of the school, Colossus' sister was kinda creepy; even without knowing that she had spent most of her childhood in hell, literally.

 

Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly an option at the moment. Cause the Russian mutant had just dragged off the newest student, who was somehow both a mutant and the son of Hulk, and Noriko was technically an X-Man. So she was supposed to protect the students if any danger was near them and to be perfectly honest, Illyana was likely the most dangerous being in the school.

 

Which was how she ended up finding herself in the backyard with a small gathering of students trying to be sneaky as they watched Illyana drag off Kala, as sneakily as a bull in a china shop.

 

"So, any chances of you telling us why you dragged me here?" Kala asked with a smile as he crossed his arms over his chest.

 

"I could do that… or I could do this!" Illyana yelled out as she whipped out her sword and swung it towards Kala's head.

 

Seeing the maniac Russian about to commit murder on the school ground;, Noriko activated her powers at one, not willing to let another tragedy occur on their school, but she already knew that she wasn't fast enough.

 

*CLANG*

 

Which was why she was so relieved when, instead of taking Kala's head clean off, Illyana's sword clashed with another sword; literally growing out of the ground.

 

"I am guessing this is your hazing?" For some reason Kala did not look bothered about his near death at all, instead he looked rather amused with a wicked smirk on his face as he grabbed the hilt of the sword growing from the ground and pulled it out, much like a certain king from legend.

 

"This planet tends to have problems with aliens. Thinking they get to invade whenever they want. Those of your planet made an especially big impact. So gotta make sure you know…" Illyana said as she spun her sword in her hand before going for attack once more and clashed with Kala.

 

"…this isn't your world." She said with a smile which was answered with Kala's own smile that showed his teeth.

 

"Not yet."

 

---

 

Her words should have been hurtful, but they didn't really register. Instead, call me crazy, I was having fun. Almost as much as the days I used to hunt for Mazoruses with Skaar. The sound of our swords clashing was like music to my ears.

 

Before I realized, I had already tuned out all the other students gathered around us. At that moment all that mattered was myself, Illyana and battle.

 

It was glorious.

 

At our next clash of blades, one of my hands let go of the sword I had created and instead went towards Illyana's head, intending to knock her down flat, but was avoided with a simple tilt of the head by the Russian beauty as she sent a kick towards my stomach that I avoided by jumping back. From where I once stood, several spikes of earth rose and went towards Illyana who simply opened a small portal and allowed the earth spikes to simply enter the limbo.

 

Seeing that my attack hadn't worked I did as would be expected from a child of Hulk, which was to do it again with more power! This time the spikes weren't simply coming from the front but from all of her sides, which she expertly avoided by jumping over them right before the impact.

 

So the next move would be…

 

"Enough!" Interrupted by Scott Summers, the joy killer of the X-Men.

 

"What is this supposed to be?" He asked with a glare from behind his glass and Illyana answered with an angelic smile.

 

"Hazing." I think I could see the veins bulge on Summers' head as he kept glaring at us as we simply smiled like we had no shame in our actions. Mostly because we didn't. I could see that Skaar had fun watching our little battle and Illyana, from my limited interactions with her, was a pure chaos gremlin. One could even say she was like a goddess, caring only for her own pleasure and displeasure.

 

I didn't dislike it.

 

"Yeah, no. You know what, I'm not going to deal with this shit, if you two wanna throw hands; at least do it in the Danger Room." Scott said with a sigh as he punched the bridge of his nose before pointing at me.

 

"But before that, Kala, you come with me." He said before turning around, so I did the same as well and called out to Noriko.

 

"Hey, you mind staying with Skaar for a while?" I asked and she nodded, though there was a little hesitation in her eyes; guess she had been somewhat intimidated by my little fun with Illyana. I would make it up to her later.

 

"Skaar, listen to Noriko and don't start fights." I said sternly and was awarded by my brother nod at me while rolling his eyes, little brat.

 

"We will continue after the visor is done with you." Illyana said with a sly smirk on her face before turning around and leaving. I know what they say about crazies but I swear that I will do my father proud with this girl. In other words, Kala smash.

 

---

 

It took a moment before I managed to catch up to Scott, the leader of the X-Men looking rather tired as he looked up at the sky while standing in front of the gate.

 

"So, any hints on why you wanted me to come?" I asked as I put my hands behind my head.

 

"I just got a call." Scott said as a rather loud noise started to come from above us and I saw a small space ship in the sky. A Sakaaran model of personal shuttle.

 

"There are some people who want to meet you." He said as the shuttle landed and it's passengers came out.

 

The first one to come out was a rather large humanoid made out of rocks wearing armor follows closely by a far smaller humanoid female with red skin and short hair wearing a tank top. Right after them was another woman with stone gray skin and behind her a rather enormous insectoid. Then the rock man raised his hand.

 

"I am Korg the Kronan, the Warbound of the Green King of Sakaar, and I salute you; the son of Holku."

Chapter 12: Chapter 12

Scott would like to think that he had grown quite a bit from his past self and became a calm adult. It was quite admirable as most of his past experiences should have just made him insane instead. Experiences like his first wife turning evil due to being possessed by a giant bird of fire, his second wife turning out to be the clone of his first wife, his daughter from a dystopian future time traveling back and etc.

 

Yet he could feel his calmness leaving his body the more he stayed around the son of Hulk. Worse part was that it wasn't even anything the boy was doing, things happening around and about him was just so tiresome.

 

Like the gladiator friends of Hulk from outer space coming to his school in order to meet his newest student kind of tiresome.

 

"It is very nice to meet you, Korg the Kronan." The son of Hulk said with a smile as he clasped the hand of the giant stone man.

 

'Quite the gathering, isn't it?' A voice resonated inside his head, an occurrence that was not only common but also unavoidable when one was in relationship with a telepath.

 

'At least they aren't demanding us to surrender the professor this time.' Scott thought back with a mental eye roll which was answered by a giggle.

 

'Oh stop it, none of them were there when Hulk demanded Charles' head; luckily for us.' She thought to him and Scott had to admit that she was right.

 

The full rooster of the available X-Men and the god damn Juggernaut had faced the green berserker when he had came to the school, and he hadn't left because they had been anywhere close to beating him. Add his gladiator buddies, things could have been far uglier.

 

'No matter, you go and mingle with Kala and his new buddies. Make sure they don't try to recreate Gladiator. I'll go calm down the students after that little fiasco that you decided to not deal with.' Emma thought at him and Scott could already feel the sensation of the couch on his back. So he decided to not give Emma any further ammunition on him and went towards Kala and the warriors of Sakaar, catching the end of Kala's question.

 

"…where is Hiroim Oldstrong?" The son of Hulk asked and Scott was somewhat curious about the whereabouts of the shadow priest as well. Though he got a pretty good idea about it when he saw the solemn expressions on the rock man's face.

 

"…Hiroim is no longer with us. He has perished in battle against an enemy of your father named Samuel Sterns. His old power was turned against the innocents and our friend chose to sacrifice himself in order to protect them, transferring the last of his power to our friend Cate Waynesbro here." Korg explained and he had Scott's sympathies. Losing a friend was never easy, he would know.

 

"Then may the prophet embrace Hiroim Oldstrong as he crosses over to the other side and may the cosmos know…" And then Kala's eyes hardened, holding a look that Scott had seen on many before.

 

"…Samuel Sterns will not die well." Many like Magneto, Nick Fury and Logan.

 

"But not today." Then the look in his eyes softened as he turned towards Waynesbro.

 

"Today I greet another member of our family. Well met, Cate Oldstrong." The young man said with a smile as he offered his hand to the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who took it with a smile after a moment of hesitation.

 

"Well met then, Hiro Kala."

 

"Now then, please come, I want you all to meet my brother. The cosmics know that the little brat needs more people to socialize with."

 

---

 

"And you two know about… Miek?"

 

"We learned through the old power when we first connected with it. We saw the traitorous insect have one of the reds who were still loyal to their fool king plant the bomb, then the fires of Sakaar claimed the murderer of the capital city." Hiro Kala explained to them as they sat on the grass in the backyard of the school and Elloe had to hold back a flinch at the knowledge that one of her people had been responsible for the bomb, along with the smile that tried to force itself on her face at the knowledge of the bastard's death.

 

To be perfectly honest, she had been… wary when she had learned that the sons of her king had survived on Skaar and had arrived on this world. She was glad that they were alive, no doubts about that, but she knew how much Sakaar could effect someone. There was still a part of her wanting, starving, for battle; for carnage. A part of her that shamed her and that she tried to keep under control ever since the revelation of Miek's treachery. She could not allow herself to be driven by anger anymore, never again. She had been afraid that the sons of the Green King may have arrived to this world with such intentions. She was happy to see that she was wrong.

 

"We heard about what you said to Osborn." Cate Waynesbro said as she looked at them with worry but Elloe could also see a calculating light in the new Oldstrong's eyes, she was fishing for information.

 

"You mean the man of Nor? Is there anything important?" Kala asked as he also kept an arm around Skaar, she wondered why the two brothers looked so different; as in why Kala looked older than Skaar.

 

"Yeah, you pissed him off."

 

"I don't care."

 

"You should, Osborn may be a bastard; but right now he is a bastard with power and connections. Simply getting on his nerves can be a death sentence to many, he will try something against you soon." The newest member of the Warbound warned but Kala did not seem to care.

 

"Then he will fail. If you expect me to act respectfully towards that sentient slime, then I must apologize as I will be disappointing you Cate." The elder son of Holku said with a shake of his head and Elloe had to put her hand in front of her mouth in order to hide her smile. In her opinion, it was about time someone took Osborn down a notch or two. And she could admit that the thought of the one to do so being the son of her king did make her feel rather joyful.

 

"Let us not speak more of these dull matters. Would any of you be interested in sharing tales, I am rather interested in the stories of the Warbound of my father. I might even tell you of the dreadful trial of teaching this brat how to wear pants if you tell a story impressive enough." The shadow tribe member said as he ruffled the hair of his brother who glowered at him and finally, Elloe could no longer hold her laughter.

Chapter 13: Chapter 13

"I don't care how it might look on our part, just do it." Norman Osborn, once street level super criminal now leader of his own Avengers, growled as he slammed the phone down. Stupid people, trying to tell him what to do or how his actions could backfire. Morons.

 

Things were fine. Everything was fine. He had regained his lost honor with his acts in the Skrull invasion, he was now the leader of the god damn Avengers and the power he was amassing from the shadows with the rest of the Cabal made every day worth waking up for.

 

And even if something did go wrong, why would he need to be worried? He had Sentry on his side.

 

It was just a shame that he couldn't send him after that little shit that was the son of Hulk. Wasn't he supposed to be dead after a bomb had killed his mother while she was pregnant with him anyway?!

 

He wished he could simply send one of his Avengers to deal with the kid and be done with it but he couldn't. This was the son of Hulk after all, if he was anything like his father than none of his team could deal with him with the exception of Sentry and Ares. Problem was that Sentry was a friend of Hulk so he likely wouldn't want to kill the brute's son. Ares could have been a good option but the brat was with the X-Men right now. The combined might of the team would be far too much for the Olympian.

 

No, no he simply needed to test the waters so to speak. To get a reading about the brat's combat potential in a battle instead of simply destroying bombs. And his plan would work perfectly for that.

 

He would learn how the bastard's powers worked, how the people around him acted and then he would strike!

 

"Mister Osborn, the rest of the Avengers are waiting for you."

 

"I'm coming now Victoria." And he would win, just like he did against the Skrulls and Stark.

 

---

 

"Sorry that I just put Skaar in your hands with no warning yesterday." I said with a smile as I sat down beside Noriko who simply shrugged.

 

"It's okay, he didn't really cause any problems before you came back with the… Warbind?"

 

"Warbound." I corrected her with a smile.

 

"Yeah, them." Noriko nodded as she gestured towards where the Warbound were sitting with Skaar in the backyard. My bratty brother would never admit it but I could see that he was warming up to them very fast.

 

"It's eye opening. Seeing people who attacked New York and defeat the Avengers along with Hulk just sitting around a kid and having fun." Noriko muttered with a faraway look in her face.

 

"You sound surprised." I said with a raised eyebrow while Noriko looked away.

 

"The only interaction we had with the… culture of Sakaar was when your father beat us all up. I can't help but have some biased views that are being challenged by what I'm seeing now." The blue haired mutant said and I could only nod. It wasn't exactly something I was pleased about, but it was definitely understandable.

 

As much as I wanted it to be otherwise, there was an actual reason people were so afraid of father even though people like Sentry and Thor existed as well. With those two people tended to be at ease, they couldn't help but feel that they were with someone like them. Someone who was relatively harmless.

 

The Hulk on the other hand… His rage, his strength and his mannerisms; they never let the people forget the one important truth about the 'supers' around them.

 

'This guy can kill me.'

 

For a normal civilian, the knowledge of a being that could easily kill them and his acts never letting them even pretend that fact didn't exist… it must be quite sad to be so weak.

 

Not that Richards and his band of genius morons had that excuse, wonder if I could mess with them without causing issues for myself?

 

"What was it like? On Sakaar?" Noriko asked me with a tilt of her head and I frowned as I gripped my chin.

 

"From what I gathered, Sakaar is somewhat similar to deserts of this world. Ridiculously hot days and ridiculously cold nights. If one is not prepared then they will end up dead simply standing on the planet. And that is without mentioning the beasts of the planet, which are even scarier than this horror country called Australia." I said with utmost seriousness which somehow seemed to make Noriko laugh.

 

"Heh, and what about the people?" She asked between giggles and I continued.

 

"People are… varied. There were those who were weak, mostly those who spent their whole lives in the so called civilization. Bunch of self righteous assholes. The ones who actually lived on Sakaar were different, they became accustomed to the dangers of the planet and could survive the nights were the beasts roamed. Though this also had the unfortunate side effect of making them into psychopaths." I said with a shrug as I remembered the Axeman Bone and Omaka who were powerful warriors with very unpleasant personalities.

 

"Sounds similar to some people of this world." Noriko snorted and I had to smile, she was fun.

 

"Maybe, but your world also seems to have those who can go against those kind of people in order to protect others. The only one on Sakaar who actually did that was father, and then the Warbound." I said with a smile.

 

"Cool story." A familiar voice came from behind us and I ended up eye to eye with Illyana when I turned around.

 

"Would have been far better with some bloody details though." She said with a smile which seemed to unnerve Noriko while I smiled back.

 

"The stories on Sakaar tend to skip over the bloody parts, it would be rather tiresome to hear the same things in every story otherwise." My words seemed to amuse the Russian mutant so I continued.

 

"So; are you here to continue the, what was it again, hazing?"

 

"Hah, no. No we'll continue that later. Cyclops wants to see you, said that there was something he wanted to discuss."

 

"Then please, lead the way."

Chapter 14: Chapter 14

"So, what did you need me for?" Hiro Kala, the newest hope of mutantkind and all time headache of one Scott Summers, said as he leaned back to the wall while the leader of the X-Men sat behind his desk dealing with the ridiculous amounts of reports he had on it. Most of which were either about Logan stabbing someone or Logan drinking too much.

 

"It's about the training you will get." Scott said as he gestured towards one of the chairs for the young man to sit.

 

"To be perfectly honest, I am not entirely sure how we can help you with your energy based abilities. It always has been one of our failing when it came to helping the students." The current headmaster said with a sigh as he pondered over the white lie he was telling Kala. It wasn't exactly a lie though since they did have quite a bit of failings when it came to reality warpers.

 

"I am detecting a but there." Kala said with a raised eyebrow and Scott nodded.

 

"Yes, there is someone we are... acquainted with that might be able to help you master your powers. The problem is, you might not exactly like who it is." Scott admitted and was answered with another raised eyebrow.

 

"You seem to think that this acquaintance of yours is the only choice so I don't really think me liking them is of importance." The half alien said and Scott had to wonder why the rest of his students couldn't be as mature as this kid who technically wasn't even a year old yet.

 

"I am relieved that you feel that way."

 

"And if I don't like them then I'll just learn everything I can from them and then use their teachings to beat them up." And there it was.

 

"I would be far happier if you didn't try to beat him up." Scott sighed while Kala just smile at him.

 

"Considering that I'm supposed to dislike this guy, and that you aren't dumb enough to send me to someone like man of Nor, I can only guess that he is one of the quartet who shipped off my father." Kala continued with a smile but there was steel in his eyes.

 

"…yes, it's Stephen Strange." Scott admitted with a nod and opened his mouth to speak but he was interrupted by a voice in his head.

 

'Scott, we need to talk. Now!' Emma's voice echoed inside his head and Scott could already feel that the talk would be nothing pleasant, Emma's thoughts wouldn't have sounded so distressed otherwise.

 

"I'm sorry Kala but I got an urgent business to take care of. We'll continue to talk later." Scott said as he got up from his seat and left the room along with Kala before going their separate ways.

 

---

 

There he goes, the brave leader of X-Men, likely ordered to do so by Emma aka the actual brains in the leadership. Can't help but admire the guy for getting with her though, pretty sure people hated him for that far more than for his personality.

 

But still, Doctor Strange huh. While I did not exactly held him in high esteem due to his actions against my father, I could easily admit that I was pretty much fond of him when compared to my feelings towards Richards and Stark. Not to mention getting an apprenticeship under the Sorcerer Supreme would be quite beneficial. I had to train for the Strange Supreme template I had after all.

 

Not that it mattered until I got the chance to talk with Scott again. Until then I was better off thinking about what to do. Specifically about my father.

 

To be honest, meeting and having a proper talk with my father seemed… difficult. And that was saying it without thinking about the plethora of other personalities that resided within him. What a drag.

 

"You seem troubled." I turned around to see the Russian mutant who had been the one to inform me of Scott's wishes to talk.

 

"Guess you can say that." I said with a smile at Illyana. I didn't know why exactly I was so fond of her, especially when I knew of the kind of atrocities she was ready to commit. But there was a part of me that just couldn't dislike the mistress of Limbo.

 

"So, are you here to continue with your hazing?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

 

"Heh, no. No, I was just curious what captain glare wanted with you." Illyana answered with a chuckle.

 

"It's nothing really important. Just some plans for the near future." I said with a shake of my head and started to walk away but was stopped by Illyana's voice.

 

"You said that you wanted to meet your father." I turned to her with a confused look while she stared at me with a blank face.

 

"You also have been quite ready to defend him whenever someone badmouthed him and clearly have a beef with Fantastic for what he did to Hulk. Why do you care so much for a man that you have never actually met?" She asked and I could only tilt my head with a frown as I tried to think about it. Think about why I actually cared about the Hulk.

 

I thought.

 

I thought.

 

And finally...

 

"Do I actually need a reason?" I answered her question with one of my own, much to her apparent confusion.

 

"Do I need a reason, to care about family?" I asked again and Illyana looked at me with wide eyes before she started to chuckle, which then turned into a full blown laughter.

 

"Hah, guess... guess you don't." She said as she finally calmed down and opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted before she could do so by a tremor that shook the whole building and a loud shout echoed through the halls.

 

"Where are they?! Where are the, sons of that spineless bastard Hulk?!" I ran towards the window and then jumped through it, sending shards of glass everywhere, and then landed on the yard. Right in front of the bastard calling for me and my brother.

 

"There you are!" Even though this was the first time I was meeting him, there could be no mistaking of the reptilian Goliath in front of me as he smiled with his fangs showing.

 

Abomination was here.

Chapter 15: Chapter 15

Emil Blonsky, former communist Yugoslavian spy who had tried to sabotage missiles that were essential to defense of United States but had always been thwarted. But nobody actually cared about that, no what people really cared about was he tried to sabotage my father's work once and ended up turning into a giant lizard like being that ended up fighting against the Green Goliath several times, getting his butt kicked each time.

 

And now here he was, demanding to see the children of his arch nemesis because it seems like he has finally realized that he never had a chance against father. In his defense, there weren't many who actually had a chance against father when he got really mad, and Blonsky's face alone was enough to make anyone mad.

 

"Where the hell are they?!" His voice was pretty annoying too. So I decided to shut him up.

 

"Hey, jumbo fish sticks!" I called out as I sent a wave of earth spikes at him, which sent him flying a few feet away. Not exactly bad but to be honest, I was hoping for Abomination kebab.

 

"You… you're one of the sons of that fucking bastard!" He yelled out before rushing at me and I had to admit, he was pretty damn fast for a guy of his size. Which was why instead of dodging, I used the old power to turn the earth between us into quick sand and even had it surround him before hardening.

 

"Yeah, you stay there for a moment." I said with a smile which was wiped off of my face as I saw cracks form on the rock covering him before I completely shattered with small stone pieces flying in every direction from him.

 

"You think that you can keep me in place with stone?! I fucking fought with Hulk you shitstain!" Abomination yelled as he rushed at me once more but this time he wasn't interrupted by earth.

 

"That makes two of us!"

 

He was interrupted by a metal fist punching his chest instead.

 

Ahh Piotr Rasputin, you might not be able to preach the Bible like a preacher but you can definitely punch like a hero.

 

"Coming here was a mistake, mister Blonsky. Now we will teach why you don't mess with the X-Men!" Hank, in his blue furry glory, said as he jumped down from one of the windows and landed in front of the Abomination, right before punching the overgrown science project in the chin.

 

"And I…" Which merely seems to be made the Abomination mad.

 

"…will teach you what it means to brawl with me!" He yelled with both of his arms high in the air before swiftly swinging them down to where the Beast stood. The blue mutant swiftly evaded it with a backflip but the impact of Abomination's fists still shook the earth with his strength that had more than once allowed him to brawl with the strongest one there is.

 

Which gave me an idea.

 

---

 

Honestly, couldn't they have at least one day of peace and quiet? Those were the thoughts of Scott Summers as he placed his visor over his eyes as he ran towards the clearing where the battle against the Abomination was going.

 

Honestly, could Osborn be any more obvious? Even without Emma telling him about the so called Cabal and the less than noble intentions of the former, or so he claims, Green Goblin had towards the X-Men and the sons of Hulk; he still could have figured out the connection between the archenemy of Hulk, who was supposed to be still in captivity, attacking his school right after his newest student, who happened to be the son of Hulk, insulted the former villain who had a high governmental position.

 

Honestly, even Blob and Toad could have made an attempt with better deniability than this.

 

"Take him down!" Scott yelled as he blasted the Abomination with a beam. If nothing else, he could admit that dealing with the weaker green giant after the stronger one had kicked their collective butts was somewhat enjoyable.

 

"You fucking ants!" What wasn't enjoyable was the fact that Abomination was definitely trying to kill them, unlike the Hulk. His first clue, the fucker trying to take a bite out of one his students' head!

 

"Come on! This is nothing compared to the Hulk! Is there none who can actually challenge me?!"

 

"Let me take the challenge!" And then Abomination's skull met the fist of the newest green giant.

 

Shows what Emma knows, having the non mutant son of Hulk was a good thing. Scott completely ignored the part of his brain that suspiciously sounded like Emma telling him that Abomination was here only because the sons of Hulk was here. It wasn't like Osborn would have left them alone for long anyway, damn snake.

 

"Skaar!" And there goes the mutant son of the Hulk and possibly the key to their future along with Hope... that somehow sounded like he was planning to have them marry and continue the mutant race as it's Adam and Eve so he'll stop now.

 

"Shake it up!" The gray young man yelled and his much bigger green brother gave a grin that made Scott really happy that most of their students were not a part of this battle. And then he turned back to the Abomination, who was fighting against Colossus and Beat, and started to run towards him with each of his steps shaking the ground.

 

"The hell?!" Abomination cried out as he was punched by Skaar who then proceeded to hit the amphibious looking man again and again, causing shockwaves after shockwave that shook the earth. Rather impressive for one so young.

 

"Hahahaha!" Though it would have been better if he wasn't laughing like a maniac with each of his punches. But still…

 

"Don't! Screw! With! Me!"

 

…Abomination had been punched much harder by someone far stronger and still managed to get up in the past, even Skaar's impressive punches were not enough to keep him down.

 

"Move!" Then Kala yelled and Skaar simply jumped away to reveal the gray young man, whose eyes were glowing with whitish blue energy that also encompassed his fist.

 

"Hah!" Which was then used to punch Abomination right in his face and Scott could swear that the shockwave from the punch had popped his eardrums, it definitely had destroyed all the glass in the vicinity.

 

"And stay down!" The young man yelled from over the fallen body of Abomination with the fist that had laid him flat raised high.

Chapter 16: Chapter 16

"Well, that happened." Scott said with wide eyes as he walked up to Piotr, looking at the downed form of Abomination and the sons of Hulk standing beside him.

 

"It is as you say in here, like father like sons." Piotr said with a shake of his head, trying to get his head around what had just happened.

 

"Except the sons saved our butts instead of kicking them." Logan said as he took a swing from the bottle in his hand that Scott could swear wasn't there a second ago.

 

"We could have taken Blonsky, but I do see your point." The Russian mutant said with a pointed look, give him another five minutes and he would have the scaly monster down as well.

 

"Well, this should be enough for the 'new student has their adventure' routine of our school." Logan said with a roll of his eyes and Scott had to hold himself back from arguing with the shorter man. Their new students didn't get into adventures after coming to school… most of them… some of them… probably.

 

"Do you two think that we should interfere?" Piotr asked as he pointed towards the sons of Hulk who seemed to be arguing beside the fallen form of Abomination.

 

"Nah, I think they are fine." Logan shrugged before drinking the rest of his beer.

 

"No Skaar, we are not eating him!" And then spit the beer out before looking at Scott and Piotr.

 

"Then again kids might need some guidance." Logan said and then ran towards them with Scott and Piotr coming after him with some very disturbed looks on their faces.

 

"Why does he even think that's an option?!" Noriko asked with wide eyes while Kala averted his eyes.

 

"My brother had an… habit of eating the beasts that attacked us on Sakaar, which isn't where we are and this is not a beast." The gray skinned young man said the last part with a glare directed towards his much larger brother.

 

"He attacked us and actually thought that he could win, that seems mindless enough to be a beast."

 

"That's not mindlessness, it's just stupidity."

 

"More or less the same."

 

"Nobody's eating anybody." Scott said with a glare as he walked up to them, he was so not gonna have cannibalism in his school.

 

"Then let's just finish him." Skaar said with a huff as the giant of a boy pulled his sword from his back and positioned it above Abomination, only for Piotr to grab his arm.

 

"We are not doing that either." The Russian mutant said with a stern look which seemed to made the newest green Goliath mad, not good.

 

"Is letting him really wise though? Sounds like just giving him more opportunities to come back." Kala said with a tilt of his head, making Skaar stop glaring at Piotr and look at them with a smug face now that his brother was backing him up.

 

"Likely, but the legal issues we'll face if we kill him would be far more troublesome. You guys can just beat him up if he comes back." The leader of the X-Men waved Kala's concerns away.

 

"And this guy is supposed to be one of my father's greatest enemies." The gray skinned young man said with disappointment rolling off of him in waves.

 

"In Hulk's defense, the Abomination is a formidable enemy if the battle is merely a slug fest; which tends to be the way your father fights. Though that also makes the fact that you downed him with only one punch far more impressive." The Russian mutant said with a smile and Kala simply shrugged.

 

"Technically, I cheated. And that's without considering the fact that you guys and Skaar had been punching him for a while before I landed the last hit."

 

"Cheated?" Logan asked with a raised eyebrow as he placed himself between Skaar and the fallen form of Abomination.

 

"I used the Old Power to absorb the shock from the small earthquake Skaar made by punching the ugly, then I used it all to punch him."

 

"Like we did with Axeman." Skaar said with a smirk which was copied by Kala as well.

 

"That we did."

 

"I feel like we are missing a lot of context here and I also feel deeply concerned about that missing context." Noriko said with a sigh and Scott had to hold himself back from patting her in the back, it was kinda nice to have someone else feeling like he did; no wonder she made a great X-Men.

 

"Sounds impressive." And then the other Russian mutant of their school said as she walked towards them with a smirk that send shivers down to everyone's, except Skaar's, backs. Though the shiver had a very different reason for existence when it came to Kala.

 

"Though I must say, it was rather rude of you to leave in the middle of a conversation with a lady." Illyana said with a smirk as she walked up to them, ignoring the concerned looks her brother was giving her.

 

"I'd say that the situation would allow me to be slightly rude to a lady with no repercussions, though the only way one would call you a lady is if you were threatening them to at sword point." The son of Hulk said with a smirk, ignoring the glare he was getting from Piotr for talking to his sister that way.

 

"Heh." Illyana didn't seem to mind it though, as a matter of fact Scott wasn't sure if he had ever seen her looking like she was having this much since she came back.

 

"Still, if killing him is too much effort, what are we supposed to do with the ugly here?" Kala asked as he pointed to the downed form of Abomination.

 

"We'll just have to hand him over to authorities." Scott said with a sigh.

 

"And accelerate our other plans." Emma said as she walked towards them with a frown on her beautiful face.

 

"We knew Norman would have tried something but something like this, this soon, we have to start the project Utopia as soon as possible." The former White Queen of the Hellfire Club said to the leader of X-Men who simply nodded at her.

 

"The man of Nor? I thought that he was supposed to be some sort of mastermind, why would he do something this obvious and useless?" Kala asked with a tilt of his head while Noriko was looking like she was hearing things way above her pay grade beside him.

 

"He is, but he is also rather overconfident at the moment with Sentry on his side. Rather understandable." Emma muttered the last part with a frown that was shared with the other members of the X-Men. None of them was happy with the thought of having the guy that had managed to have a slugfest with Hulk during his war, right after he had laid everyone else flat on their back.

 

"So, what's the plan?" Not that Kala seemed to care about it much with his hands behind his head.

Chapter 17: Chapter 17

"So, Blonsky has been defeated already." Norman Osborn said with a scowl, not happy with the fact that the former spy and current super villain had been, as far as he could gather, defeated without properly hurting anyone in the mansion of the X-Men. Honestly, how hard could it be to take out some of the brats? They might call themselves homo superior but most of them didn't have actually impressive powers, they also didn't have enough numbers to protect all of the students. But somehow Blonsky managed to get himself defeated and sent to a S.H.I.E.L.D. base in a record time.

 

"Useless piece of shit." Osborn scoffed, sure he hadn't exactly expected much of the gamma mutate but this was disappointing even for him. And now that he had attacked her precious school, Emma's betrayal to their Cabal was just a matter of time. He would need to give Namor some incentives to stay by his side, maybe some sort of tribute to Atlantis, and think of which of the remaining members would help him deal with her.

 

Doom was out and in other news, water was wet. The ruler of Latveria would never help him in a situation like this. Especially after his scare tactic with Sentry's other persona, the Void. That act had definitely alienated most members of the Cabal but none more so than Doom.

 

Loki... she, which was still a weird thing to think about, might be willing to offer him some aid but the problem was how much he could actually trust such aid. The trickster god, or goddess, thrived on chaos and Norman wouldn't put past her to give him sabotaged help just for shits and giggles.

 

Which only left Hood, whom Norman was quite sure that the mystic was waiting for a chance to strike against Norman much like Emma was now. Except Hood would do it out of greed instead of some perceived slight against him.

 

Huh, this meant he could not rely on any of the Cabal members. Guess that was the downside of a group of supervillains who were used to being the masterminds, there was no sense of comradeship. Not like when he was with the Sinister...

 

No, no that wasn't him. That... thing was gone. Gone forever.

 

Still, it wasn't like everything was lost. Sure he had expected more from Blonsky and not being able to make use of the Cabal was disappointing, but there were still other options.

 

Now that he had launched an attack on their precious students, the X-Men would start to move against him. What he needed to do was to figure out exactly what they would be doing with all the eyes on them that had been placed by the government due to their small population and the wish of the normal people to make sure the population stayed small. Not that they, or at least most of them, would ever openly admit it.

 

Now then, what should be his next move? First of all, he would call his Avengers in order to make sure they were ready for any kind of response from the X-Men. Then he would…

---

"So… what do you normally do without your brother?" The blue haired girl that had been welcoming of them asked Skaar with a somewhat shaky smile on her face. She was afraid, not exactly of Skaar or his brother though. Instead she was afraid of the things they had heard from the leaders of this place talk about, things like some man of Nor having less than pleasant intentions towards them.

 

A foolish fear, this place had Skaar and Kala. No man of Nor could threaten any of the denizens as long as they were here, they would smash him for even thinking about it; much like they had done to that small band of reds that had attacked them in order to take their food. Just because this new enemy is said to have powerful friends would not change the fact that man of Nor would end up the same way.

 

More importantly, he need to answer the blue haired one. Kala had been quite strict about that... 'manners' thing since they came to this planet, something about this place not being Sakaar and how they couldn't just smash everyone.

 

"I sleep... or just wait for him to come back." Skaar answered, hating how soft his voice sounded while in this puny form. Damn puny easily scared earthlings and Kala's desire to not scare them.

 

"That's it?" Blue haired one asked with a raised eyebrow and her hands on her hips, as if saying that Skaar's answer was not satisfactory.

 

"So anything you do, when you're not with your brother, is essentially to wait for your brother to come back?" The blue one asked with twitching an eyebrow as he nodded with a smile, it was nice to see that she finally understood. She was a smart one, for an earthling.

 

"Okay, no. That ain't gonna fly?" When did their conversation included flying?

 

"You're coming with me." The blue one said as she grabbed him by his arm and started to drag him much like the one with a sword that Kala played with had done to him. Did that mean blue one had a sword too?

 

"Excuse me, coming through." Blue one said over and over again as they went through other denizens of the school, some of them looking quite different than ordinary earthlings.

 

"Hey Surge, what are you up to?" Like this one that looked like he was made out of gray stone, did he have some sort of connection to that orange on that he had met before... before father showed up?

 

"Sorry Rockslide, can't talk now. Gotta teach this kid how to kid." What?

 

Before he could demand some sort of answer from blue one about this 'kid' business, she entered to a room and then started to search through a box on the corner. Dumb girl, didn't she realize that turning around and putting her head in a space like that made her vulnerable to attacks? She was lucky that Skaar was here or someone might...

 

"There it is!" She cried out as she raised a... disk, high in her hand. What was so important about such a thing, and what did it have to do with 'kid'?

 

"This here Skaar, is called anime. A visual story if you will. Something that you just might appreciate; it has action, comedy, music and tension! Perfect for spending time!" She said as she gave him the box of the disk and Skaar wanted to scoff. Watching adventures that did not truly exist, thought it was rather fitting for earthlings who were too puny to have their own adventure in the real world. Unlike... this orange haired guy had a huge sword, almost as big as the one Skaar had on his back.

Chapter 18: Chapter 18

"So, any chances you tell me about that plan of yours in order to deal with the man of Nor?" I asked with a smile as I leaned on the side of the door, happy to see that Scott and Emma actually seemed to be making plans instead of getting frisky. Then again, one of them was a telepath so…

 

"As a matter of fact, no. There is no chance of us telling you, or any of the other students, about our plans for Osborn." Scott said with what I assumed to be a deadpan, it was kinda hard to know due to the ruby sunglasses.

 

"Come on, I promise not to tell anyone. Not that most of the students are brave enough to come anywhere near me." I muttered the last part with a frown, kind of disappointed how wimpy the so called next generation of X-Men was being when it came to me and my brother. Only Noriko and Illyana had approached us till now and it was obvious that grouping the Russian mutant with the rest of the students was a dumb idea so technically it was only Noriko who had approached us from the student body.

 

"Normally, I would have said that's because of the lasting impression your dear father did when he was here the last time. But I think your little hazing with Illyana may have scared them far more than your father did." Emma said with a roll of her eyes and I kept the urge to roll mine in check with herculean effort.

 

"Fair point." I conceded to her with a nod. "I may have expected a bit too much from your students after telling me that they were the only thing standing between our race and extinction." I said with a shrug, probably taking more pleasure than I should from their winces.

 

"Ok, I'll come clean, I don't actually care about those plans of yours; much. But I need you guys to give me something to do, there is only so much relaxing while ignoring the looks of fear mixed with respect sent my way. At this rate I think I'll actually try to pick a fight with a student." I said with a groan as I rubbed my temples.

 

It might sound ridiculous considering my recent tussle with Blonsky, but there was nothing to keep me occupied at the moment. Especially since Noriko had adopted Skaar while I wasn't looking, Illyana was off to devil knows where and the Warbound departed a while ago.

 

"And I'd like to think our students are not dumb enough to agree to such a fight after what you did with Blonsky." Scott said with a sigh but I could see Emma rolling her eyes from behind him, guess she did not have the same confidence in her students as her boyfriend.

 

"Also, if you really have nothing to do then you might want to just go outside. Enjoy a small breeze, the feeling of sunlight and maybe even wrestle with other students like your brother is doing right now." Scott said as he gazed at the window, those things did sound kinda... wait what?

 

"What was that?" I asked as I ran up to the window and Skaar was indeed wrestling with a student with a body made out of rocks. The hell?!

 

"Gotta go! Bye!" I yelled as I ran to the door and then to outside, all the while wondering how exactly Skaar had ended up as mister popular during the five minutes I took my eyes off of him.

 

---

 

"I don't want to say this but I don't think it would be wise to let the son of Hulk actually get bored in the school. We literally have no idea what would that lead to." Emma said with a sigh as she leaned back on the table, wondering how exactly her life ended up so crazy.

 

It probably started when her powers first manifested and climaxed when she thought that trying to deal with the X-Men was a good idea. Though, she looked at the sighing form of Scott, she wouldn't have it any other way.

 

"I know, trust me. I thought that I could keep him occupied with Strange but I'm not sure about opening that can of worms before the project Utopia."

 

"You're afraid that he might interfere with it?" Emma asked with a raised eyebrow and her boyfriend slouched on his chair.

 

"I'm not sure. Not long ago I would have said no, Strange is not exactly one to deal with the ridiculous notions of status quo or politics as he showed when he remained unaffiliated in the Civil War of the Avengers." Scott said and Emma had to hold herself back from scoffing.

 

The whole 'Civil War' and the notions about people caring about the deaths of innocents was a massive joke. If they cared so much about children dying, why didn't they do anything whenever mutant children got killed by any of the numerous hate groups around the world? Or with Genosha? They were all hypocrites and cared only about how things lookedinstead of how they really were, especially that arrogant son of a bitch Stark. His disgrace was quite honestly the one thing that she truly had enjoyed about Osborn's rise to power.

 

"But then we learned about that whole Illuminati thing and how they sent Hulk to space, with Strange supporting that decision. So I'm not really sure." Scott admitted, looking far too tired.

 

If things kept going like this, with mutants at the cusp of extinction and governments trying to control their remaining population, then the leader of the X-Men might actually end up tiring himself to death while trying to find a solution to their problems. A result that Emma would not accept.

 

"Let's talk about it with Hank and Logan as well." The blue furry mutant would be able to help them think through the more logical parts of their dilemmas while the hairy mutant would be helpful for the more morally questionable parts of it.

 

"We'll make through it Scott, I promise." Emma said softly as she hugged her boyfriend from behind, her mind already preparing methods that the rest of the X-Men would have balked at in order to deal with their problems in case they reached to unacceptable stages. Methods she had learned in the Hellfire club.

Chapter 19: Chapter 19

"One more time!" I heard somebody yell as I ran down the stairs, trying to understand how exactly Skaar had managed to get a social circle while I wasn't looking. I would have expected him to eat anyone that tried to socialize with him except for Noriko, and even that was because I had declared her as an authority figure to him.

 

Those were my thoughts as I finally reached outside where Skaar, Noriko, a student made completely out of rocks and several others were standing around. But honestly, my attention was neither on the students or on the way they were standing. No, my attention was completely focused on the sword in Skaar's hand that was raised high. Crap!

 

"Skaar!" I yelled as I ran towards him and planted myself between him and the other students.

 

"Brother I do not know what happened, even so I am completely confident that you were in the right, but let us not be so hasty okay?!" I said as fast as I could with a smile on my face, trying to keep Skaar as calm as possible while trying to understand who was the dumbass that had angered him to the point of drawing his sword; completely ignoring the fact that my brother had been looking for an excuse to draw his weapon since the moment we landed on Earth for my own sanity.

 

"Hey man, what's the deal?" The student made out of rocks, that likely would have been Skaar's first victim if it wasn't for my timely intervention, asked with a confused tone as he looked down at me.

 

"Yeah, he was just gonna show us some tricks." A girl with Asian features said with a frown and I started to realize that maybe, just maybe, I had jumped the gun.

 

"What kind of tricks?" I asked, trying to ignore the last few moment and hoping that the other students would do the same.

 

"I'm gonna slay the moon!"

 

"…I'm sorry what?" I asked after Skaar said that with a tone far too chipper for the words that had just came out of his mouth.

 

"He's trying to cover his sword with energy and then send it flying with a slash." Noriko explained it to me and I felt a small amount of relief as I now knew what I needed to do.

 

"No flying slashes." I said with a pointed look which made the rock student groan.

 

"Come on man! What's the worst that could happen?"

 

"Considering the nature of the Old Power, he could very well destroy this school while also causing a seismic disaster." I said without averting my gaze from Skaar who finally put his sword back in it's sheath with a sigh.

 

"That sounds super cool." Rocky claimed and I decided that this guy would definitely be bad influence on Skaar. He was already destructive enough in his Hulk form without even trying, I didn't want to imagine how bad it would be if there was someone actually encouraging such destruction for shits and giggles.

 

"No, Kala is right Santo. We are not destroying the school just because it would be cool." Noriko said with a shake of her head. Not only solidifying her position as the smart one among the students but also giving me a proper name for the student made out of rocks.

 

"What is this about you guys destroying the school?" A voice came from above us, making us look up to see a man that likely has made many men question their sexuality with his looks and their faith with his wings.

 

"Angel!" Santo, I got his name now, cried out with a huge smile on his rocky face; happy to see the senior X-Man.

 

"It's Warren, I'm not exactly on duty right now." He said with a smile as he landed with a flap of his wings.

 

"As I said, no destroying the school." He said once more with a smile as he patted Santo on his arm.

 

"If we didn't get to destroy it with all the stuff we had to deal with, then you guys don't get to do it either." He say playfully and students around him laughed, even Skaar had a small smile on his face. But not me.

 

All I could do at the moment as I looked at one of the original X-Men was to imagine him with blue skin and metal wings. For all the shit Jean Grey had to deal with, like dying, this man here definitely had my utter sympathy. He was pretty much same as my father after all, except his split personality was genuinely evil and had came from one of the most evil mutants that had graced this planet's history; Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur.

 

"Are you here for a mission?" Dust, a student wearing clothing that covered her whole body except for her eyes; a burqa I think, asked with a tilt of head head. Which seemed to make the Angel somewhat uncomfortable.

 

"Come on, you're talking like I come back here only to get instructions for new missions." He said with a laugh that was short lived as he saw the unimpressed looks the other students were giving him. Finally, he sighed and explained.

 

"Scott asked me to come back but as far as I know it is not about a mission." He admitted with a sigh.

 

"Then it likely is about the man of Nor." I said with my arms crossed over my chest, making the students look at me.

 

"What? We already know that the Abomination was send here by him, and now the leader is calling for the members back. Meaning that it will be about strategies to protect this place from man of Nor or plans for a counterattack." I explained, somewhat surprised by the fact that they were surprised.

 

"Then mayhaps you people might need a helping hand!" A loud voice came from behind and we all turned around to see its owner, which made our eyes widen as we saw exactly who it was; none more so than Angel.

 

"If so then look no further! For the Lion of Olympus, Hercules himself, and his trusty sidekick Amadeus are here to lend that helping hand!" The demigod bellowed with a far smaller kid with Asian features tucked under his arm.

 

"Who you calling a sidekick?!" An angry Asian kid.

Chapter 20: Chapter 20

"Please leave."

 

"Well now, I don't think I have ever been rejected quite abruptly like this since that time I tried to use my dashing looks on the fetching warrior Penthesilea; and I had actually slept with her sister!" The Prince of Power said boisterously before throwing his head back and laughed.

 

"Hercules, I don't want to be as rude as certain someone…" Angel tried to interfere while giving a pointed glare to his visored leader. "…but I have to agree with Scott, this is not exactly the best place for you to be at the moment." The winged X-Man said, hoping to convince the demigod before he did something stupid.

 

Which was far more stupid than most things Hercules did, Amadeus had learned that the hard way.

 

"Nonsense, friend Angel! We have a common enemy in the form of Norman Osborn, the possessor of the ugliest haircut in New York, and the Lion of Olympus would never leave his friends at the mercy of a mutual enemy!"

 

"We are not at the mercy of him." Emma Frost, calm down Amadeus Jr., said with a glare as she planted a hand to her hip; looking like a teacher that was about to be admonishing a jock. Which was weird since Hercules could never pass enough grades to obtain the status of a jock.

 

"Not to mention that there is another reason that we are here." And he proved that by ignoring the very dangerous telepath without a second thought. Guess there was no reason for him to fear telepaths without anything inside that gray lump of jelly that was supposed to be his brain.

 

"I know that the sons of Hulk are here, mostly because I met them very briefly while entering your school, and I wish to get to know of the children of my dear jolly green friend!" Hercules declared, making everyone give him weirded out looks; even Amadeus did. Sure; the young genius respected Hulk more than any other hero, even if the buffoon beside him was earning more and more of his respect every day, but even he wouldn't call the Strongest One There Is 'jolly'.

 

"How did you even learn about those two?" The leader of the X-Men asked with a sigh, something Amadeus was happy to answer.

 

"I had tools that picked up the raising gamma signatures in the country. So I just hacked into a camera in one of the choppers, we kinda did lose the signal when the gray one put all the choppers down though." He admitted with a shrug and then the conversation was picked up by Hercules once more.

 

"But young Amadeus here hacked into the communication line between Richards and Norman after that. Speaking of which, please guide me to the gray child; I wish to offer him a drink for the amazing burn, as I believe it's called these day, he gave to that vile villain!" The demigod declared with a wide smile.

 

"I heard myself get mentioned." Speak of the devil and he shall appear, the gray son of Hulk walked into the room with his arms crossed behind his back. "And for your information, my name is Kala; Hiro Kala."

 

"'Hero' you say? Truly a name worthy of your blood and your words against the Norman!" Heracles said with a laugh and Amadeus could only sigh before poking the demigod in order to get his attention.

 

"He said 'Hiro', with an 'I'." He explained to the simpleton who looked at him with confusion before, finally, he realized his mistake.

 

"Umm, yes. Yes, I already knew that young Amadeus! This was merely a jest, an Olympian joke! Hahahahaha!" The son of Zeus tried to save some of his dignity, which failed spectacularly much like most other things he attempted to do.

 

"More importantly, well met Hiro Kala!" Hercules said with a smile as he offered his hand to the son of Hulk who took it with a smile.

 

"Well met indeed, it is rather nice to see a more friendly rival of my father after the utter disappointment with the overgrown fish." He said with a smile, which froze Hercules' smile.

 

"Overgrown fish?" Amadeus asked with a raised eyebrow.

 

"We were attacked, not long before the two of you came here, by the Abomination." Scott said with a sigh, getting wide eyed looks from the brain and brawn duo. Though the brawn got a hold of himself faster.

 

"Then your reaction is justified Kala, for I definitely am a far more pleasant company than one as dull as the Abomination." He bragged.

 

"But we have gone far off from the original conversation. Young Amadeus and I wish to help you X-Men against Osborn and his fake Avengers and his ridiculous hair." He then continued, once more trying to get the X-Men to accept his help.

 

"Hercules, we are flattered that you want to help us this much. But you do remember that you are a wanted fugitive right now, right? You definitely should be helping yourself more than us." Angel tried to deter the demigod from his cause with words, proving once more that he was quite below Amadeus when it came to intellect.

 

"Please, you guys will be considered just as bad the moment you guys finally retaliate against Osborn. That moment will also be when the bastard comes after you all with his fake Avengers, who include Ares the god of war. Someone Herc here is quite talented at battling." Amadeus tried to sell their point. He knew that the current roster of the mutant team did not have anyone that could beat Ares in a one on one fight. They could overwhelm him with numbers though. But that brought them to the last point in Amadeus and Hercules' favor.

 

"Not to mention you guys will need all the help you can get against Norman's golden mascot, Sentry." And with that mention of the man, who held the power of million exploding suns, Amadeus knew...

 

"...I guess we can use some help." He was once more the victor in a battle of words.

Chapter 21: Chapter 21

"Now then young heroes, show me your mettle!" Hercules yelled as he started to wrestle with Rockslide, which ended within the blink of an eye with the young mutant on his back, before swatting Noriko's electrical shock with the back of his hand.

 

"An impressive show of power young one, but you are a few decades too early to use lightning against the son of Zeus!" The demigod laughed before catching a punch from Paras, code name Indra, who was clad in a purple psionic armor. Then he pulled the young mutant to himself and threw him over his shoulder.

 

"That's something I learned years ago, while I was still learning under Chiron!" The demigod laughed before crossing his arms and forming an X over his chest in order to block a grayish green fist.

 

"And there comes the main event." Hercules' smile was downright bloodthirsty, but it could only be considered sweet compared to Skaar's expression; which was akin to a growling wolf, if the wolf was a son of Hulk who had been raised in one of the most barbaric cultures in the universe.

 

"Come on!" The demigod bellowed as he ran towards the son of Hulk, who did the same before throwing a punch towards Hercules' head; only for the old hero to go low, slide between Skaar's legs and then 'hug' him from behind.

 

"And this is something I learned in Texas!" Then the son of Zeus lifted the son of Hulk and slammed him to the ground, headfirst, with a perfect German Suplex.

 

"And that's how we do it in…" Hercules' words would remain unfinished as a kick landing on his jaw silenced him.

 

"And there comes the second brother." He said with a bloody grin as he looked at Hiro Kala, the slimmer son of Hulk that seemed to have been waiting for an opening before commencing his assault. A tactic Hercules approved.

 

"Go on!" Hercules yelled as he charged forward, which Hiro Kala responded by trying to jump above the ancient hero. Something that Hercules expected as he immediately went high himself and catches… nothing?

 

"The hell?!" Son of Zeus gaped as the son of Hulk shot towards the left in the air. "You can fly?!" He yelled with the barest hints of jealousy in his voice.

 

His distraction also cost him dearly as the son of the Hulk he had thought to have put down already leaped from his small crater and slammed both of his fists down on the demigod's head.

 

"Cunning aren't you?" Or he would have if he wasn't blocked by the demigod's arms before Hercules swept his leg and tripped Skaar, right before leaning down in order to avoid a hit from Hiro Kala and rewarded his ambush with a punch of his own; sending the leaner son of Hulk flying away.

 

"Anyone else?!" The Greek hero yelled with his arms wide open as he planted a foot on Skaar's back to keep him down. "Does anyone else wish to challenge the Lion of Olympus?!"

 

"I think the Lion of Olympus has been challenged enough." Angel said with a sigh as he walked towards. "Ok guys, the simulation is over." And with a clap of his hands, the surrounding terrain once more turned into the metallic sheen of the Danger Room.

 

"Thanks again for helping with the training Herc."

 

"No thanks is necessary, friend Angel! It is my pleasure to help the young and upcoming heroes of this age to realize their potential. Speaking of potential, have I ever…" Hercules' words were cut short by the speakers coming to life.

 

"Told us about your immense potential for destruction and stupidity? No, but you have shown it more times than we can count." Amadeus Cho's voice echoed through the Danger Room, much to Hercules' ire as he saw the tiny smirks of certain young heroes he had been beating up only a minute ago. Traitors brats, Iolaus wouldn't have laughed!

 

"Let's just all return to our rooms." Angel said with a smile. "We have a big day tomorrow."

 

---

 

"You have quite impressive students, friend Cyclops." Hercules said as he popped open a beer can. "I'd say that they have the potential to become heroes even greater than my Avenger comrades."

 

"Don't you mean former comrades?" Emma asked with a raised eyebrow but Hercules merely laughed.

 

"Hah, no I don't. That ridiculous civil war and Osborn's take over of our beloved team may have somewhat soured our feelings, but the real Avengers will come back. No matter what." The Greek Hero declared. "So I shall merely enjoy punching Osborn in the face until the return of the real Avengers."

 

"That might be hard with Sentry on his side." Scott said with a sigh. "I know that you are a god and all that, but still."

 

"Friend Cyclops, let me tell you a truth that us gods tend to keep quiet about." Hercules said with a smile as he leaned forward. "We are not nearly as great as we'd like to have you mortals think that we are."

 

"As a matter of fact, I can say with nary a doubt that I would trade a thousand years among the gods for mere moments among you mortal heroes. For it is you lot who teach us gods how we really should be, even if most of us don't really listen to the lessons." He grumbled the last part.

 

"Thank you Herc... that really means a lot." Scott said, pleasantly surprised by the words of the Lion of Olympus. After so long seeing the man as only a meathead with obsession with hedonistic lifestyles and punching people, actually seeing the man known as the greatest hero of the Greece was a nice change.

 

"Well then, I must be off now friend Cyclops. Young Noriko and Santo has told me that they are having a small party in the kitchens before the big day and I believe they were saying something about a double glazed fried desserts. I have no idea what those are but I am quite interested in trying." Well, mostly anyway.

Chapter 22: Chapter 22

"So… what's all the commotion about?" I asked Noriko as I stared at the gathered student body who were all vibrating with excitement.

 

"Oh yeah, you don't know. They say that Hope is back." Oh... so the local mutant messiah was back from the future? Not that I 'knew' about Hope.

 

"I am guessing you are not being philosophical." My comment earned a laugh from Noriko, the young X-Man looking incredibly amused.

 

"Nah, it's not like that, Hope is a mutant like us. Though I kinda forgot that the whole thing with Hope was before you so you wouldn't know." She said with a smile as she scratched the back of her head. "We told you about the whole M Day where the mutant-kind came near to extinction, about how so many mutants lost their power and no more new mutants appeared. Hope is the only mutant born since the M Day, she is the only new mutant since that disaster." She explained before looking at me.

 

"Well, at least she was." And then corrected herself.

 

"Then are we waiting for some sort of baby?"

 

"No the situation with Hope is... complicated. Something about a time traveling mutant named Cable taking her in and raising her in the future and then bringing her back as a teenager." Noriko tried to explain one of the weirdest backstories in all comic history as best as she could.

 

"That's... something alright." I said as I tried to remember anything I could about Hope Summers, and came up blank.

 

All I could really remember about her was her powers, the fact that she was somehow connected to the Phoenix Force, people believing that she was the reincarnation of Jean Grey and that she didn't actually look anything like the most famous host of Phoenix Force.

 

So yeah, I had no idea what she was supposed to be like.

 

"So people are excited because their messiah is back." I said with a snort, not bothering to hide my feelings about the subject, causing Noriko to frown at me.

 

"I guess there are a few who think like that, you don't seem to like the idea though."

 

"On Sakaar, people prayed for the Sakaarson to come and bring them salvation." I said with a shake of my head. "At first they claimed my father was the Sakaarson and after the whole bomb going off in the capital thing, they tried to push the role onto me and Skaar. The idea of some chosen savior is not merely ridiculous, it is also a sign of weakness." I huffed.

 

"The only ones who will be saved are those who are willing to save themselves, not those who just clasp their hands and pray." I said as I crossed my arms over my chest. "I can only hope that this Hope does not drown in the expectations of the weak as they try to force her into something in their image."

 

"You seem rather… passionate about this." Noriko said with a frown. "Did something happen on Sakaar that made you think like that?" She asked and I had to take a deep breath, realizing that I had been getting a bit too emotional.

 

"…the way people look at those they dub as saviors… it's not nice you know. The way they just put their expectations on you and act like the one they put the burden on should be honored to be saving them while they just sit on their asses. The reds and the shadow people on Sakaar had been quite adept at complaining while Skaar and I were saving them." I explained as I looked out of the window to see Skaar playing with Rockslide, who was basically his new best friend these days, and even that jerk Hellion.

 

"They taught me well on the worth of being a savior. It ain't worth shit, one should just protect their family and those they want to keep around them. If everyone properly did that, there would be no need for saviors." I said with a huff, thinking of the way that the people of Sakaar just tried to push all of their problems onto me and my brother. At least old Sam had tried to offer a helping hand now and then while trying to do that.

 

"And… are we also among the people you want to keep around?" Noriko asked with a smile that had a rather sad feel to it.

 

"…I guess you are." I said with a sigh. "It would be rather hard to find a new babysitter for Skaar after all." I continued with a smirk and Noriko's eyes widened before she lightly hit me on the shoulder with a smirk, even adding a little static shock for extra power.

 

"Jerk." She said before giving me a hug. It was… nice.

 

"How cute." So of course the moment would get ruined immediately. "Am I also a part of the group you'll protect?" Illyana said with a smirk as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back on the wall.

 

"Something tells me that I should be protecting people from you?"

 

"Smart guy." The Russian mutant said with a smirk as she walked up to me. "Now I need you to come with me, our glorious leader wants to see you."

 

"Why?" Noriko asked suspiciously, people really didn't trust Illyana around here.

 

"If you really wish to know, he's gathering all the powerhouses we have." Illyana said with a shrug. "Likely making a plan of action now that our esteemed messiah has returned. Cyclops does not trust the world to not make a move now that Hope is here, she is bit of a too tasty of a target for groups like Friends of Humanity."

 

"That does make sense." I said with a sigh before giving Illyana a smile and opened my arms wide. "By all means, take me to your leaders."

Chapter 23: Chapter 23

"Let's begin this meeting." Scott said as he sat down on the table, surrounded by all the people who could handle the mission.

 

The full roster of the main X-Men, some of the younger ones like Hellion and Rockslide, Magik, Hope, Hercules and Amadeus Cho and finally the sons of Hulk.

 

In one small meeting room, Scott had enough power to overthrow any nation in the world with only the possibleexceptions being Latveria, Wakanda and Atlantis.

 

"For those of you who are not entirely aware, let me tell you about Project Utopia." He said as he pushed one of the buttons on the table and holographic schematics of Utopia came to life. "It was originally called Asteroid M and used to be the headquarters of Magneto while he was still leading the Brotherhood." And then a holographic image of Magneto appeared.

 

It was rather ironic. Scott had spent years doing all within his power to go against Magneto and his message, yet now he was going to be using his base to put distance between the mutant-kind and the rest of the humanity in order to protect themselves.

 

On days like these, he wondered if his battles against the Master of Magnetism ever had any meaning; since it seemed like the mutant-kind's future was going in the way Magneto had claimed that it would anyway. Yet even so, he had to do what needed to be done.

 

"We are planning to have it raised back up soon, outside of the jurisdiction of any nation, and use it as a safe house for mutants and a base for the X-Men." He said with a smile before frowning. "But, as I am sure most of you here know by now, we are at the moment in a shadow war against Norman Osborn and his Avengers."

 

"Fake Avengers." Hercules piped up from his seat with a glare, looking rather unhappy about the fact that the new team that claimed the name of his old team was the subject. "You have to just look at their 'Hawkeye' and 'Spiderman', I would bet Aphrodite's Girdle that they can't even make a decent knock knock joke." The Lion of Olympus declared with a huff, his words somewhat bringing the mood up.

 

"Yes, Hercules, thank you for that important information." Scott said with a sigh before pressing on another button and making several other holograms appear, in the form of Osborn's Avengers. "What I'm trying to say is, the moment we start the project Utopia; that little shadow war of ours will not be in the shadows anymore. Osborn and his team will attack us, more than likely intending to deal with us in a more permanent way." Scott admitted.

 

He remembered watching Osborn's Avengers from far away. The amount of power they held was… impressive, even without thinking about their true powerhouses.

 

Ares, the Olympian god of war and the half brother of Hercules; a man that Scott just couldn't see himself defeating by himself. Hell, he was pretty sure that no mutant who was not Omega Level could actually defeat him, with the sole possible exception of maybe Magik. And he wasn't even the worst of them.

 

Sentry… he still did not know how exactly Osborn had managed to get the strongest man on the planet on his side but what he knew was that they didn't have anyone among them who could deal with him one on one. The man with the power of million exploding suns… they would likely need to send most of their forces against him in this battle.

 

"I actually did not want to reveal project Utopia this soon, but Osborn has already stuck against us in a manner we can not ignore when he sent Abomination at us."

 

"Isn't that because they are here?" Hellion asked with a scowl as he gestured at the sons of Hulk with his head. He still didn't really like them and Scott could accept that, but not when he was creating discord among the ranks. But the leader of the X-Men was interrupted before he could say anything by Logan.

 

"Yup, when Kala over there declared that Osborn must have had an ass inside his mouth for there was no other way for him to spout so much shit while talking." The Canadian mutant said with a laugh which was shared by almost everybody else in the room, mostly loudly by their new resident demigod. Hell, even Emma had a small smile on her face at the crude humor.

 

"The matter of fact is, we have a very strong enemy that will move against us if we actually go through with this plan. And the people in this room are those that I trust to have my back when they come." Scott declared and saw the small glittet of pride in everyone's eyes. "But our enemy is strong, stronger than almost anyone else in the world. So the decision to go through with the project Utopia, the decision to make our war against Osborn an official one, belongs to you." He said and then sat back down.

 

"So I want everyone's opinion on whether to go through with this plan or not. But know this, Osborn will not stop attacking us even if we stay here; he will just attack in a more discreet manner and gasp for the cameras if we blame the attacks on him." He declared with a glare from behind his ruby glasses. "But the decision is yours."

 

For a moment, there was silence. All the people in the room looking deep in thought, with the younger X-Men looking at each other in order to understand their thoughts. But the thoughts of some were easy to see. The original members of X-Men and Hercules all had known war in their own way and were obviously ready to follow him. Same for Hope who was hardened by… by Cable's death. It was still hard to accept that his time traveling son was supposedly gone, but right now Scott did not have time to grieve.

 

And finally, there were the sons of Hulk. Kala looked rather calm and merely gazed back at Scott with a serene look in his eyes. His far larger brother on the other hand…

 

"Blah blah blah." Skaar grumbled with his arms crossed over his chest. "Let's do this thing!"

Chapter 24: Chapter 24

"We reject Norman Osborn's pogroms against mutants. We reject the hate crimes of Trask and his ilk. It seemed to us that the people of the United States wanted us gone, so we left." Scott Summers' words reached to the world through the satellites that the X-Men must have hijacked, and Norman Osborn could only sit and watch with anger as the upstart kept talking.

 

"But we won't be pushed, prosecuted, persecuted or punished any further. We seek peace and to live peacefully. Whatever happens next... it's beyond our control."

 

"Damn straight it is." Osborn said with gritted teeth as he looked at the screen.

 

The mere fact that Summers' had the gall to challenge him like this was grating enough, it made him want to go out and pluck the bastard's oh so special eyes. But what made his anger reach to new heights was not the actions of that upstart Summers, it was who that was standing beside him!

 

Emma Frost and Namor, the White Queen and the King of Atlantis were supposed to be on his side; on the side of his Cabal! Yet they were standing beside Summers as he went against Osborn's, the government's, authority like it was his given right. That would not stand!

 

"Bring me Namor's head." He ordered to his Avengers with gritted teeth as he put his Iron Man helmet on. "And Emma Frost's heart. And make sure that Summers sees you do it!"

 

---

 

"Whelp, they are coming." Scott said as he gazed at the rapidly approaching air vehicle. By whatever mumbo jumbo calculations of Hank, they should be close enough to attack them in about two minutes.

 

"You have gotten me into a rather complicated mess, Summers." Namor, the king of Atlantis and occasional ally to heroes, said as he walked beside the leader of X-Men. "Though this does give me the chance to put Osborn back into his place. Though I believe certain others also wish to have that chance." He said as he crossed his arms over his chest with a smirk and looked at the gathered mutants around them.

 

"Speaking of those who would like to put Osborn back into his place, where is Emma? I didn't think that she would miss this chance." He continued with a smirk and a cocky tone, neither of which were things Scott liked when a man like Namor talked about his girlfriend.

 

"She's on a rescue mission with Kitty and Psylocke, this is the best chance to do so with Osborn's strongest cronies away from their base." The leader of the X-Men may have some... complicated feelings when it came to his old teacher, but he was not gonna allow him to stay as a prisoner to Osborn while creating a mutant Utopia.

 

He would still be passive aggressive toward him though.

 

"They are closing in." Scott was roused from his thoughts about how to welcome professor back without appearing too happy by his newest, and most likely the most troublesome, student landing near them. The kid had picked up how to fly with telekinesis pretty fast, Scott still remembered the fails of Jean in their training days.

 

"We know. Did you tell your brother about the plan?"

 

"Yup, and he's not happy about it. Just like you intended." Kala said with a raised eyebrow as he looked at him, no accusation in his tone.

 

He had to admit, that was something he liked about Kala. The kid was chill, even while knowing that Scott had made a plan that relied on his brother getting angrier and making use of his physiology as a Hulk. Any of the other X-Men would have given him stink eye and tell him how he had 'changed', like people stayed the same as they were as kids while their race was under the threat of extinction.

 

"So you are the son of that green beast." Namor said from his side with a mocking tone and an annoying smirk as he looked at Kala. "I expected you to be taller."

 

"My brother is the tall one." And Kala dealt with Namor's act with maturity. "And you're the smart cookie among the morons of Illuminati that realized messing with my father was not a good idea." Or not.

 

"Hah!" Though thankfully Namor didn't seem to be willing to start a fight right before Osborn invaded them so that was nice. "I like this one. He has backbone, something most of you surface people seem to be lacking."

 

"We're literally about to fight Ares and Sentry." Scott definitely did not whine. Seriously, how much more of a backbone could they show?!

 

"Speaking of our enemies." Kala started speaking with a grin as his eyes started glow the eerie white with blue outlines. "I think it's about time we gave them a warm and loud welcome!" And then slammed his palms on the ground.

 

As the small island made out of the once Asteroid M started to shake, two huge pillars of stone rose from the ground and then far smaller pieces of earth started to poke out of them.

 

"Fire!" Right before each of those small pieces started to shoot off of the pillars and went towards the incoming plane of Osborn's cronies at hypersonic speeds, just as they had planned during the meeting, before one of them managed to hit one of the plane's wings and shattered it with a huge explosion that sent the air vehicle down to the ocean.

 

"What are the chances that at least dealt with some of their weaker members?" Scott asked, only to be answered with a snort from Namor.

 

"Norman is like a mussel. A weak and pathetic creature inside that can only be an appetizer to true rulers of the sea at best, but also possesses an annoying shell that makes them hard to kill." The ruler of Atlantis declared before smirking. "Or as you surface dwellers say, 'He's like a cockroach.'"

 

"I heard that." Proving Namor's words right, the metallic voice of Norman Osborn in his patriotic looking Iron Man armor came from above before he and his Avengers dropped down.

 

Those who were pretending to be heroes, Norman's own Wolverine, Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Captain Marvel were on his right while Sentry and Ares were on his left.

 

"Shooting first, asking questions never huh? And here I thought you were all about going against that kind of bigoted behavior." The man's words were mocking as he raised his arms up and pointed his palm towards them. "I will give this chance only once, surrender."

 

And his answer was obvious. "No." And then both Osborn's Avengers and the X-Men jumped towards each other.

 

"Avengers, take them down!"

 

"Imperius Rex!"

Chapter 25: Chapter 25

Chaos, that was the best way to describe the current battlefield on the terrain that once had been the Asteroid M.

 

Even though the X-Men did have quantity on their side, Osborn's Avengers had quality. After all, most of the students fighting could barely slowdown whoever it was impersonating Captain Marvel and Venom, let alone Ares. At least Scott's idea to bring Namor in ended up helping them as the king of Atlantis had slammed right into the biggest and meanest enemy they had, the Sentry, and had disappeared into the far end of the Asteroid M; away from the rest of the fight but from their minds as the ground shook every five seconds or so from their battle.

Which would have distracted Scott to the point of fatality, due to a beam from Osborn's armor, if he hadn't had the ridiculous experiences he had as an X-Man.

 

"I have to say Summers, I'm kinda glad you decided to pull shit like this." Osborn claimed, his voice sounding mechanic due to the faceplate of his armor, as he landed on the ground and threw a punch at Scott's head. "It makes it so much more acceptable to deal with you and your pesky little team once and for all."

 

"You might want to take a rain check on that idea Osborn." Scott said with a smirk as the earth beneath them rose to strike Osborn right in his chin, sending the armored man back into the sky where he was then smacked back down to the ground.

 

"This is our first formal meeting." And the one who did that was standing above Osborn with a glare as he cracked his knuckles. "I am Hiro Kala and I believe you are the tiny little man that thought it was a bright idea to drop bombs on my brother."

 

---

 

"Is this all you have?!" Ares, the god of war, bellowed out as he stroke the ground and blasted those who had tried to dog pile him away with a shockwave. "You have declared war upon the Avengers, upon the god of war, and this is the best you can give me?!"

 

"Not at all." A voice came from behind and Ares felt an impact on his chin from below as a very familiar, and annoying, brother of his stroke him. "As according to Xenia, let me give you a proper welcome gift. The gift of battle!"

 

"I find your gift wanting brother." Ares said as he spit out a little bit of ichor to the ground and called his axe to his hand. "As many others before must have said to a buffoon like you!" And with a mighty bellow, he raised his weapon and brought it down where it clashed with Hercules' own Golden Mace.

 

It was a surprise to see his brother in this battlefield, yet Ates was glad. Now that the oaf that their father favored even after he had killed Ares' divine Stymphalian birds and his demigod son Kyknos. His son with horns may have been a buffoon comparable to Hercules and a little lacking in sanity, but he still had been his son and his murder was not something Ares would be forgiving.

 

No, today was a good day for death!

 

"Send our uncle my regards, you fool!"

 

"Not today dear brother of mine!" And once more the earth shook beneath the feet of the sons of Zeus as their weapons clashed.

 

---

 

"Really dad?" Daken, currently under the codename of Wolverine, snorted as he jumped from one branch to another in order to chase the first man to have that codename. "First you allow the Girl to try her chances against me and now you hide in the woods? I am really disappointed in you right now."

 

Honestly; he had accepted Norman's bullshit Avengers idea simply because he knew it would have given him a chance at his father's head, and the eye candy was not so bad either, and this was how their so called 'battle' was going? Shameful, just shameful.

 

"What's next? Are you going to let one of the other brats, I'm sorry, one of the esteemed future X-Men to try their chance as well?" He mocked his father as he unsheathed his claws, the metal from Muramasa blade covering them was begging to tear the regenerator mutant apart.

 

He was actually kind of surprised that his search was taking so long, considering the fact that he had been letting out pheromones that were basically the equivalent of telling a hundred 'yo mama' jokes in a minute since the chase began; most would have becomen creatures of pure anger and attacked him by now.

 

"Funny you should mention the kids." His father's voice echoed through the forest right before the ground beneath him burst out and he was attacked by a torrent of sand that became a cocoon around him, which he slashed and hacked at for no result. "Say hello to Dust!" And then the sand over his face disappeared and he saw his father's fist coming closer to his face.

 

---

 

"You have to be kidding me." Scott groaned as he saw the fake Hawkeye of Osborn's Avengers shoot several arrows and destroy a defense mechanism of their base with each of them, making him realize who exactly was it under the mask. "Osborn has dressed Bullseye as a hero." He had a half mind go back and shoot a particularly powerful beam at the man for that insult, but…

 

"You will not die well!" As he saw the armored bastard impact the ground once more while Kala followed after him with his eyes and fists glowing an eerie white with blue outline, followed by giant chunks of earths rising up and then shooting towards the bastard as Kala followed after him, he decided that he could leave that beating to the others.

 

Still, the things were going far better than what Scott had thought they would be like when the plan was first hatched. He even had just gotten news from Cuckoos that Emma and Kitty had saved the Professor from the hole that Osborn had put him into. At this rate they really were gonna...

 

*CRASH*

 

The thoughts of the old time X-Man was cut short as something impacted the ground near him from the sky and left a huge dust cloud over a crater that dispersed and revealed Namor's bleeding form, making Scott's stomach drop as what that meant and looked up to the sky where the biggest threat to them was hovering.

 

"This has gone long enough." Sentry was here.

Chapter 26: Chapter 26

"This has gone long enough." Sentry, the strongest man on the earth, the Golden man, the man with the power of million exploding suns. And now, the biggest gun that Osborn could point towards the X-Men and their allies.

 

As much as I hated to admit, the man's presence was… suffocating. The only thing that came close to it was when I first met my father and only surpassed by him almost going World Breaker.

 

No wonder people were all afraid of going against him, the one guy that came closest to beating father in his invasion other than Doctor Strange; and the Sorcerer Supreme had to let a universe ending demon possess him in order to get the upper hand.

 

"Cyclops, we can still end this peacefully. All we need is for you to tell your people to stand down." And he was just calmly talking like he hadn't just whooped the ass of the king of Atlantis who used to go against my father. The perks of being powerful.

 

"Yeah, I'm sure that the little concentration camps Osborn has prepared will be very peaceful." Cyclops said with sarcasm thick in his voice as his hand went towards his visor but I could see exactly how tense he was.

 

"I assure you that it won't be anything like that." Sentry claimed with his hands up in surrender. "You will have to stand trial for this mess but we won't be hurting any of the kids, so please; let's just end this peacefully while we still can." The strongest member of Osborn's Avengers declared as he crossed his arms over hi chest.

 

I had to give it to him, the man likely did believe the shit he was spouting and did want to end things peacefully; this was the man that had befriended my father after all. Unfortunately, the parallels he was drawing between his situation with Void and Osborn's situation with Goblin was making him blind to the fact that Osborn was a monster even without Goblin's input. A fact that Cyclops knew too, which meant...

 

"Take him!" Peace was never an option.

 

From where they had been standing; Colossus, Rockslide and Strong Guy jumped towards Sentry with their fist raised hight but... there wasn't any way to describe the next few events other than sad.

 

Strong Guy's punch merely turned Sentry's head while the combined attack of Rockslide and Colossus just pushed him away a little bit. That was the problem, unlike my father and Namor, Sentry's durability was at a ridiculous level as well. The current brute force oriented members with us simply were not strong enough to make him experience anything more than discomfort. And the two people we had who were strong enough... my brother was needed elsewhere and Namor was barely able to get back up.

 

I could see Cyclops' visor narrow as he likely thought about using plan three, which was to have a group of telepaths attack Sentry but that would have its own dangers. So I had to think, think of some other way to deal with the golden man until the original plan was ready!

 

"Can you get back up yet?" I asked with frown as I used the old power to make a shield that blocked missiles from Osborn's suit.

 

"This... is nothing." The king of Atlantis declared as he finally managed to get back up, yet he was still trembling as he tried to stay steady. "Lower the shield, I have business with Osborn and his golden lapdog." He growled out but it was clear to my eyes that he was in no shape to fight. He probably could heal if he was in water but even that would likely take at least an hour. I needed to think something.

 

"Come now Namor, I have a very nice little missile here with your name on it." And Osborn's stupid voice definitely was not helping, neither was the sight of Sentry demolishing anyone who came close to him. But within that beatdown, an idea formed inside my head.

 

"Namor." I said as I looked down at the king of Atlantis. "I have a plan."

 

"And let me guess, you need me to trust you?" He said with a mocking smile even as he kept holding his side.

 

"At least my own desire to get Sentry off of this place and kick Osborn's ugly mug." I said with a frown as I kept the shield up.

 

"...very well." It looked like it had torn a piece of him, but Namor accepted.

 

So I sent the wall I had been using to shield us towards Osborn and, while he was distracted, jumped away with a surge of Old Power gathering in my hand.

 

Which I then shot at Namor.

 

---

 

Scott had to admit, when he had brought Namor on board for this battle; seeing him get shot by one of their own hadn't been on his mind.

 

"Your men are taking each other out." And Osborn's obnoxious noise definitely was not helping. "Guess the stupidity of Hulk must have been hereditary! Might as well do you a favor and get rid of it." And then the armored man flew towards Kala, the blasters on his hands glowing brighter with each moment as he pointed them towards the son of Hulk.

 

"No." Only to be intercepted by someone who moved far too fast for Osborn. A second to look at the man revealed that the one who had stopped him was Namor but in a far different state than the bloody mess on the ground he had been moments ago.

 

Not only all of the wounds he had were now gone, the lightly tanned skin of the Atlantean was now a deep shade of gray akin to stone and his eyes were glowing with a bluish white color.

 

"I've been waiting to do this for a long time." Yet his tone, which was a weird mix of enraged and mocking, was proof enough for his identity. And so was the backhand slap he gave to Osborn that not only sent the armored man flying away, but also tore off his faceplate.

 

"Now then." The now gray king of Atlantis turned towards Sentry with a bloodthirsty grin on his face. "I believe you surface people would describe this instance as, round two bitch!" And then he was in front of Sentry with a glowing fist that sent him though the sound barrier, with the king of Atlantis following closely.

 

"Imperius Rex!"

Chapter 27: Chapter 27

Namor had to admit, he liked the son of Hulk. And wasn't that a sentence he never could have imagined thinking, but if the gray skinned young man was willing to give him power like this to beat up Sentry; then he was alright in the books of the king of Atlantis. He might even adapt to one of those weird surface customs and send him a basket of gifts.

 

"Where did all that confidence go, you goldfish looking ponce?!" Right after he was done beating up Osborn's pet golden boy.

 

The image of that shadowy thing that lived inside Sentry was still burned beneath Namor's eyelids. Every time he closed his eyes, that monstrosity would appear in his sight. There had been only one thing that made sure that Namor was not overwhelmed with fear.

 

Rage.

 

The sheer rage from the fact that Osborn thought that he could control him, the king of Atlantis, because he suddenly had some eldritch abomination on a leash was enough to make him lose any amount of fear he might have felt about that monster. Void his ass, Namor had faced far worse as a member of the Avengers and the Defenders!

 

And with this new power at his fingertips, Namor would send Sentry and his shadowy backseat monster to same place he sent every other wannabe 'greatest of evils' he ever faced!

 

"Learn your place!" And smashing Sentry down to the island with both of his hands would be the beginning!

 

 

---

 

 

"Guess not everything is going the way you wanted." I said with a smirk as I held my side, doing my best to not start gasping for breath cause fuck did giving Namor Old Power wiped my reserves out! I could feel them filling back up slowly but there probably wasn't much Old Power shenanigans in my near future.

 

"Maybe, but it's not that hard to see that your little help to Namor has tired you out as well." The pretend hero claimed with a nasty smirk, which I could see since the backhand from Namor had destroyed his faceplate. "You sure you don't want to surrender? I think I can organize quite a cozy cell for you and your brother in the Negative Zone." The bastard said as he pointed his hand towards me, the circle in the palm glowing an ominous white.

 

"I might be out of Old Power, Man of Nor." I said with a smirk and suddenly a rock from behind the armored bastard impacted him, sending him stumbling to the ground. "But I am not out of options." And then I started to levitate more rocks and sent them out as projectiles towards the subject of my ire.

 

It was high time I got to use more of my Nate Grey template after all.

 

 

---

 

 

"I'm not getting paid enough for this shit." Karla Sofen, also known as Moonstone and also known as Captain Marvel, muttered to herself as she dodged another blast from the damned leader of the X-Men.

 

If she had known that this was the kind of shit she would have to deal with after accepting Osborn's offer about his Avengers, she would have just laid down for a while before going back to being a psychologist under a new name. It was always easy to get some extra cash by slowly manipulating some nut job into committing suicide.

 

Instead here she was, trying to fight the fucking X-Men on their own home field. Except it wasn't only the X-Men, instead they also had some other ridiculous powerhouses like Hercules and Namor as counters for their own powerhouses; not to mention the gray dude that Osborn told her that was the son of the goddamn Hulk!

 

"You will not die well!" Who was throwing pretty much everything around him at Osborn with telekinesis, cause of course he had telekinesis, and did not seem to have any issues with some of his projectiles almost hitting Bullseye, impersonating Hawkeye, if she hadn't been there to scoop him out of the way.

 

"I had it handled, sweet cheeks."

 

"The rock that was about to splatter your brain on the ground begs to differ." She scoffed as she flew higher and Bullseye knocked another arrow on his bow before shooting it at the son of Hulk, the trajectory leading the weapon towards the back of his head right before the arrow stopped and shot towards them instead.

 

"Any other bright ideas?" She asked as she dropped Bullseye, who had just proven why having a bow and arrow guy in a fight between supers was stupid.

 

"How about..." The professional murderer started to say before he stumbled as the island shook. "...you go tell Sentry and Ares to stop shaking this stupid place every five seconds?" He huffed irritatedly but she had far more pressing concerns as she realized something.

 

"Sentry and Ares are fighting."

 

"Yeah, that's like the whole reason we are here."

 

"No, you idiot, they are fighting against people that appear to be their equal at a level where each of their blows cause small earthquakes!" She snapped at Bullseye with a glare and the moron just looked at her with confusion.

 

"Yeah, so?"

 

"So if those two monsters are having fist fights at that level, how is this island still standing?!"

 

 

---

 

 

Hope Summers had to admit to herself that her current situation was rather familiar yet also not.

 

It was familiar because lots of people with far more power than they deserved were near and wanted to hurt her, which was basically her life story. Yet it was also not familiar since none of those people came for her specifically and she was away from the fight. That last part was somewhat bothering her after years of constant combat by... by the side of her dad.

 

So yeah, the situation kind of felt familiar but was also somewhat a bummer.

 

"How long until Namor and Sentry reach here?" She asked to one of the Cuckoos, she wasn't sure which one was which, who had been keeping track of the battle.

 

"They are almost here." The blonde telepath said, an almost bored look on her face as she threw a look behind her. "And our secret weapon seems to be ready too." And that scared Hope more than she would like to admit.

 

There had been many things different in this timeline than what her dad had told her, most of which were likely her fault, and she wasn't sure how to move forward with this situation before things...

 

"They are here." Her thought process was cut short by the Cuckoo's voice right before what she could only assume to be Namor and Sentry crashed near them.

 

Just as she had been told, Namor now had a stone like gray skin and his eyes were glowing an eerie combination of white and blue. Sentry on the other hand seemed like he had gotten quite a beating, which was a stark contrast from every other view she had of the golden man; yet he also looked... different.

 

It was almost unnoticeable but there seemed to be a red glow in his eyes and a dark glow outlining his entire body. Hope wasn't sure what it was but she knew that she wasn't gonna wait to find out.

 

"Now!" So she yelled and dive away as the secret weapon sprung from where he had been waiting.

 

For a moment, Hope saw a grayish blur; followed by the sound of wind reaching her ears and an explosion sound as Skaar's fist punched through the sound barrier and landed on Sentry's chin. With all the kinetic energy he had absorbed from the earthquakes that would have destroyed their base from the fights between Namor and Sentry and Ares and Hercules. All of that combined with the goliath's own monstrous strength and the energy he called 'Old Power'...

 

It was no wonder Sentry just became a blur that went towards the sky and disappeared. He was out of this fight.

 

"Fight!" And Skaar was in!

Chapter 28: Chapter 28

"Your strongest member seems to be flying away." Scott said with a smirk as Kala hit Osborn in the back with a rock using his telekinesis. It seemed like the backhand he had gotten from Namor had damaged more than his faceplate, the rich son of a bitch had been somewhat pathetic since then. "You sure you don't want to just call it quits and spare yourself any further embarrassment?" The leader of the X-Men taunted the armored man as he shot a huge ray of red beam towards him.

 

"You think that Sentry is the only reason I'm a threat?!" Osborn yelled as he dodged Scott's attack and sent a blast of energy from his palm towards the leader of X-Men. "Don't underestimate me you brat!"

 

"We're not." And then he slammed down to earth as Kala landed a hit on his back. "I doubt that it would be possible to do so anyway." And then he raised two rocks with telekinesis and slammed them together with Osborn right in the middle of them.

 

Or at least he would have if one of the rocks were not destroyed by… whoever it was impersonating Carol, so the pretend hero only got hit by one rock.

 

"Annoying insect." Kala muttered as he levitated another set of rocks and sent them towards the fake Captain Marvel who seemingly turned intangible and let the rocks simply go through her form.

 

The son of Hulk looked like he was considering throwing more rocks for a moment, just because he could, but before he could do that; a projectile in the shape of a man flew towards them and made a huge crater between two sides where he landed, revealing Ares to be the said projectile.

 

 

---

Few moments before

 

 

The god of war would not admit it out loud under the threat of having his sinews ripped apart, like Typhoon had once did to his father Zeus, but he was starting to have fun.

 

Sure, that might simply be because he was punching Hercules in the face over and over again but that joy should have been offset by the fact that he was getting punched by Hercules as well. No, he was having fun because battling Hercules was fun; nothing more and nothing less.

 

He may have more than once claimed to hate his half brother for several different reasons, including but not limited to the facts that Hercules had once killed one of his sons and the fact that mortals seemed to adore the adulterer slash buffoon slash thief slash murdered brother of his while using his name only as a curse, but even he would never claim something as ludicrous as Hercules not being a worthy opponent. A stupid one maybe, but definitely not an unworthy one.

 

"What's the matter brother? Your hits are getting slower!" The demigod declared with a bloody grin on his face that Ares could not help but reciprocate.

 

"I could say the same about you!" He yelled as he threw a straight punch at Hercules's gut, which connected at the exact moment Hercules' hit connected with his head. For a few more moments, this exchange of hits continued till Hercules… stepped back.

 

And that was the moment something slammed into Ares with a force beyond anything he had felt since that time his father Zeus himself had landed a serious hit on him.

 

After he managed to get back on his feet, he saw what had hit him. A goliath that towered above even him and Hercules with stone like gray skin and long hair, and eyes that glowed with a bluish white light bright enough to momentarily blind him. He knew exactly who this was, Osborn's files had talked about him and his brother with many less than polite words after all. Skaar, the son of Hulk; yet he seemed to be quite a bit more powerful than the reports would have indicated. Meaning that Osborn had messed up, what a surprise.

 

"I am disappointed brother." Ares spat some blood and one tooth out as he glared at his half brother, who surprisingly didn't have his stupid grin on his face at the moment. "Letting someone else interfere with our fight? I thought you had more honor than that." He taunted Hercules, hoping for him to slip up and give him an opening; yet his half brother simply gazed at him coldly.

 

"When my fists and sword did not work against the Nemean Lion, I choked it to death. When I saw that your Stymphalian Birds' projectile feathers could tear a man apart, I used the pelt of the Nemean Lion as cover and shot them down one by one. When I was told to clean Aegean Stables and saw that they were in a state no man could possibly clean, I diverted a river and let the nature sort it out." Heracles declared with conviction in his voice and Ares could not help but feel himself get captivated in the moment.

 

"Time changes everything, including circumstances. And when circumstances change, one must change with them unless they wish to lose their place in the present. You know this better than anyone in our family, god of war."

 

At the words of Hercules, Ares could not help the grin that formed on his face. He wasn't sure if it was because someone finally gave him some amount of recognition for his status other than being an instrument of destruction, or the absurdity of the fact that Hercules sounding wise but he didn't care about it. Yet he also knew, that his situation was dire.

 

He was heavily wounded from his prolonged battle with Hercules and the hit from the son of Hulk, yet Hercules was in a better shape than him and now had a monster on a similar level to him fighting by his side. Even Ares, for all his pride, could see that his defeat was determined already.

 

Yet he still summoned his axe to his hand and leaped at them, for when had something as inconsequential as being in disadvantage stopped the god of war from fighting?!

Chapter 29: Chapter 29

This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

 

This wasn't how it was supposed to be!

 

This wasn't how it was supposed to be!

 

How could a riffraff gathering of mutants like this actually manage to push them back to this extent?! They were supposed to be weak! On the brink of extinction after Scarlet Witch had de-powered the lot of them, especially since the violence towards those who still had powers didn't stop!

 

Yet... yet they were winning! Most of Osborn's Avengers were either in a stalemate with their opponents or on the verge of losing. The only one who wasn't a part of those categories was Sentry, who had been blasted away! The single most powerful member of his team, and likely the most powerful being on the planet, had been taken off the board just like that!

 

"It's over Osborn." The voice of Scott Summers reached his ears but before he could retaliate against him, he was once more slammed down to the earth by that abominable son of Hulk.

 

The gray skinned monstrosity seemed to be having a jolly good time with attacking Norman, considering the eerie smile on his face, and the current leader of the Avengers could feel his teeth crack as he gritted them. The sheer gall of the offspring of a monster and some space whore looking down at him! He would have his vengeance, one way or another.

 

"It's… not over." And he would have it now! Even if it meant he had to order a fucking nuclear strike on this pathetic rock!

 

"No, it is." Yet before he could attempt anything similar to that, he heard a voice from above and felt the armor around his limbs tighten painfully; making him scream as he looked up and his eyes widened.

 

There could not be any mistake in recognizing the man above him. He might have been somewhat elusive for a while but there was no way anyone could mistake that red bodysuit and purple cape. And one would have needed to live under a rock, or more accurately somewhere near earth's core, in order to not recognize that helmet.

 

"And I believe that you have overstayed your welcome." Magneto declared as the magnetic energy around him sparked like lightning.

 

Yet Osborn could feel a smile grow on his face as he turned towards Summers.

 

"You… you have lost." He said with a demented giggle before pointing at the Master of Magnetism. "You think you can actually have fucking Magneto come to your aid and expect nothing to happen?! No, no you have fucked up Summers! The world will not stay quiet after this! The whole world will recognize you and your little group of misfits as terrorists! As enemies of the world!" He hadn't lost. No, he was on the cusp of true victory!

 

Yet for some reason Summers didn't look like there was anything wrong going on. No, the leader of the X-Men looked like there was nothing wrong, like none of what Norman said had any meaning or value. Why?!

 

The whole world would soon know of this! That the leader of the X-Men was now allied with the most well known mutant terrorist on the planet! That he no longer was a 'hero'! So why was he so calm as he walked up to him?!

 

"Look into my eyes Osborn and tell me." The leader of the X-Men stood before him, his visor glowing an ominous shade of red. "Do I look like I care?"

 

…huh?

 

"I am not one of those little government boys like you and your fake Avengers. I am not standing here for popularity or some sort of imaginary power that being part of the government gives." He said as he took another step, getting into Norman's personal space and showing no care about it. "I am not here for any of those stupid things, I'm here to protect my people from those like you. I always stood for that and since playing nice with people like you have led to nothing but monsters and killer robots on my doorstep, I think it's high time to look into alternative solutions; don't you think so?" And as if they were simply waiting for him to give this speech, the rest of the people on Summers' side landed around them.

 

Magneto with his magnetic glory. Namor who still had stone like skin from whatever the son of Hulk did. Wolverine with his claws bloody and his costume torn in several places. The giant son of Hulk and Hercules, right before dropping the unconscious form of Ares before him. Illyana and Piotr Rasputin, one with metal skin and one with a huge sword resting on her shoulder. And finally, the son of Hulk who had insulted Norman the first day they made contact; floating with his eyes glowing an eerie bluish white.

 

Right after them, the remaining members of Norman's Avengers landed beside him. Captain Marvel, Hawkeye and Spider-Man, but even Norman could not deny the truth in front of him.

 

He had lost.

 

"Know that the only reason I'm not blasting your head, no matter how much I want to, is because I am not like you and your little band of psychopaths. So I will give you this one last chance." He then leaned forward and his visor glowed. "Get the fuck off my island."

Chapter 30: Chapter 30

"Do you really think that letting them go was the smart thing to do?"

 

"No, but it's not like we had much of a choice." Scott said with a sigh as he looked at the son of Hulk. "We don't actually have the needed power to deal with the aftermath of killing the leader of the Avengers. Beating them and sending them back to their homes like naughty children is one thing, but we would have to deal with far more if we actually killed them." God knew that he would have blasted Osborn's head off if it wasn't for those consequences. The lives of his people were far more important than that momentary satisfaction.

 

"Pretty words Summers, but that's not the whole reason isn't it?" A voice came from behind and Scott was once more faced with the reality of a stone skinned Namor looking very weird. "The real reason you didn't kill them is different."

 

"You'll have to forgive young Summers, Namor." And then the most unlikely one to help him levitated down beside him. "He has spent a concerning amount of time under the tutelage of my friend Charles before his recent independence from him, some half truths when it comes to his decisions are expected." Magneto said with a smile that made his fingers twitch towards his visor as he remembered how many times he had been faced with that smile while the man before him was an enemy. "On an unrelated note, I must say that I love what you have done with the place Scott. It's nice to see my old home become a safe haven for the mutant-kind once more."

 

"Don't give him a chance to change the subject." The king of Atlantis said with a scowl before turning back to him. "Your real reason for letting them go is different, something other than strategic values, and I want you to say it."

 

"…I think we both already know why."

 

"Yes we do, but I want you to say it." Namor declared with a glare and after a moment, Scott relented with a sigh.

 

"It's because I'm the leader of the X-Men, the one group of mutants that always fought for the coexistence between humanity and mutant-kind. If I were to order the death of someone as influential as Osborn, then it's ver. The ammunition that will give to anti mutant groups around the globe will mean that the dream of Charles Xavier, the dream that we have been fighting for years, is over." Scott said and a wave of shame washed over him. The admittance of that he was risking the lives of his charges for a dream… it almost made him keep over with nausea.

 

Yet the worst part was that he knew that he didn't regret his choice. That, no matter the danger, he still believed that the dream of Charles Xavier was worth fighting for.

 

"Good." And then he looked at Namor with shock as the king of Atlantis nodded at him with respect in his tone. "Make no mistake Summers, you are the current leader of the mutant-kind; a king in all but name. You can not afford to sugarcoat things, especially to yourself. When you make a decision, do it with certainty and pride of your position." The Atlantean mutant declared, right before his skin returned to its original tanned color. "Huh, was starting to wonder how long that was gonna last."

 

"A lot longer if you had better control." Kala said with a smile as he crossed his arms over his chest. "You had a pretty damn good output but bad efficiency, you wasted around ten percent of any amount of the Old Power you tried to use." He said before turning back Scott.

 

"I will not pass judgement on your goals, you are the leader here and mercy is the privilege of the strong." Kala said before scowling. "But do be aware that if that overgrown slime had actually managed to hurt my brother, we wouldn't be having this conversation." He said and the unspoken promise to do so if such a thing happened in the future was pretty clear.

 

"And I will not begrudge you for it." Scott said with a nod, even if he was making plans on how to deal with Kala if he actually went off to the deep end.

 

 

---

 

 

Scott was a good leader. I might not agree with his decision but the fact that he knew that it wasn't a choice that everyone would agree was good, especially since most people from my former life just saw him as an arrogant asshole. Seeing him and the actual conflict he was obviously having was something of an eye opener.

 

Still didn't really agree with his decision to spare Osborn though, that was gonna come back to bite someone in the ass later on; not sure which hero group would get bitten first though.

 

In the end I decided to leave the glorious leader of the X-Men with Namor and Magneto, who had been sending rather curious looks in my direction, and went to my brother.

 

"Your timely assistance against my brother was truly spectacular, friend Skaar!" Who was sitting beside Hercules in his smaller form.

 

That was rather surprising, especially when one considered my brother's distaste for his 'puny' form. I couldn't help but wonder how exactly he ended up close enough with Hercules that he didn't mind being small around him?

 

Answers that I wouldn't be getting since an arm wrapped itself around my shoulder before I could reach my brother and the son of Zeus.

 

"I heard how you wrecked Osborn's shit." Heavily accented voice reached my ears and my gaze found a certain blonde girl with a very cocky smirk. "Makes me sad that I missed it with the whole rescue operation."

 

"What do you want Illyana?"

 

"Heh, that's cold alien boy. Not even a hello to one of your dear friends?"

 

"Hello, Illyana. What do you want?" I asked once more with a roll of my eyes and the Russian mutant smirked at me.

 

"I'm pretty sure our glorious leader told you that we were gonna contact a teacher for you. It's about time you met him."

Chapter 31: Chapter 31

"So, any chances of you telling me where exactly we're going?"

 

"Ahh, but the destination is far less important than the journey. Or do they not teach that on your planet?" Illyana said with a smile as she kept pulling me further and further away from the rest of the people on the island, till there were nobody in sight.

 

"This is good enough." And then she pulled her sword from her back and stabbed the ground, causing a glowing white circle to appear under out feet and start to rise up, making everything beneath it disappear. Until it finally went over my head and our surroundings were changed to…

 

"The hell?"

 

"It's called Limbo actually, but close enough." Illyana laughed at me but I was far more focused on the fire and brimstone over the giant pits of lava, which was pretty much everything I could see when one didn't count the grotesque monsters of all shapes an sizes moving around. From the most cartoonish looking demons to giant worms and even more biblically accurate looking ones with several heads. If this was where Illyana grew up then it was no wonder that she was so fucking messed up in the head.

 

"Calling my power 'portals' might not be wrong but people just assume that I can portal to anywhere I want. The truth is, I can only portal in and out of this place but I can portal out to anywhere so they aren't exactly wrong I guess." She said with a shrug as she placed her sword on her shoulder, uncaring of the small demon that had crawled towards her and reached out to her before she kicked it off into a lava pit; screaming all the way down. "You know, maybe I can leave you here for a while."

 

"You can, and I'll be running this place within a month." I stared down at her, unafraid of her teasing threat even though I could see in her eyes that a part of her was genuinely considering leaving me here. She really was crazy.

 

It was so hot.

 

"Heh, I have a half mind doing it just to see if you can but it wouldn't be worth the headache of Cyclops bitching to me about morals again." She said with a shake of her head. "Anyway, no reason to stay around any longer." She then stabbed her sword in the ground once more and a new portal took us out of the Limbo.

 

This time we appeared inside some sort of mansion with lots of weird looking furniture being displayed around. Like lots of floating books that likely contained unspeakable arcane knowledge, something that looked like the combination of several eyes of Horus, an ancient Japanese looking book with a footprint on top of it and even some sort of chandelier that looked like a three headed serpent that had it's heads cut off. It felt... powerful.

 

"Please do not touch that." Yet before I could even think about reaching towards it, a voice from above came and its owner floated down with his iconic cloak billowing in the nonexistent wind.

 

"That's the Artificer's Argot. A maddeningly clever device created with the express purpose of killing magic wielders. It's an artifact that is uniquely lethal to us." Doctor Strange was in the house.

 

"Why do you have something like that out on display?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, that sounded like a health hazard to any magic wielders and therefore even more dangerous in the house of Sorcerer Supreme. It could take one lucky intruder to cause the man's death and leave our dimension open to extra-dimensional arcane threats.

 

"It's pretty." Well that was a good reason as any. "Pardon me, it seems that I have forgotten to introduce myself. My name Stephen Strange, and I believe you are Hiro Kala."

 

"The son of Hulk." I confirmed with a nod, already liking how the sorcerer still kept his neutral face in front of the son of the man who shattered his hands. "I believe Cyclops informed you about me?"

 

"Yes, he believes that you would do well learning under my guidance. Now that I've seen you, I believe that he might be correct." The Sorcerer Supreme said as he stroked his beard. "Speaking of learning under my guidance, I wish to tell you that my offer is still open miss Rasputin."

 

"And as I've always said each time you offered, I'm not interested." The blonde Russian said with a roll of her eyes.

 

"Maybe not now, but you will one day accept some proper education. It is inevitable." He said with a calm look on his face, uncaring of the glare Illyana was giving him as he snapped his fingers and conjured a cup; from which he took a sip. "But if you wish to be stubborn this day as well than I bid you farewell my dear."

 

"Whatever." With a huff, Illyana stabbed her sword into the ground and activated her power. "You can have the old man bring you back, see you later nerd." And then she was gone.

 

"Lovely isn't she?" He said with a chuckle but it lacked any kind of positive emotion in it. "Shame about what happened to her, I consider it to be one of my greater failures; and that's saying something." Oh, he was talking about how she spent years trapped in a hell dimension under the control of a demon. Not sure if I could call what happened truly his fault but I also doubted he would listen.

 

"Now then, you are here to learn, so let's begin." The Sorcerer Supreme said with a smile as his eyes started to glow and two magic circles appeared on his hands.

Chapter 32: Chapter 32

"Remember young Kala, your aim is not to simply control the current of power but to let it flow through you." Stephen Strange said as he helped his newest student go from one form to another. "Magic is inherently against brute forcing things, it is a far more subtle art compared to your Old Power. Rather than forcing it to do anything you need to convince, or even trick, the power to do what you want it to do." He said and then small sparks of orange appeared on the fingertips of Kala, which then grew into magic circles that started to slowly rotate over his hands.

 

"Not going to lie, this wasn't what I had been expecting when I was told that I would be learning magic."

 

"Let me guess, you were expecting more dimly lit rooms with lots of books flying around and mysterious forces whispering dark temptations in your ears instead of simple movements that allowed you to harness the energy." The Sorcerer Supreme guesses with an amused tone and a raised eyebrow. "That is the paradox of the mystic arts. It is simultaneously far more and also far less mysterious than one would imagine it being." He said with a chuckle.

 

"I guess you're the expert." The son of Hulk said with a shrug before going back to the movements.

 

If Stephen Strange had to be honest, this current situation felt really… strange. No pun intended.
It hadn't been that long since he, along with practically every other hero available on earth, had fought against the Hulk when the green goliath had returned for vengeance against Illuminati; which Strange had been a part of.

 

His support of the decision to banish Hulk from the planet was one that the Sorcerer Supreme would likely remain ashamed of for the rest of his days, not simply for the act itself but because of what it meant to Hulk coming from him.

 

The green berserker never had much of interaction with Blackbolt except for that one time they fought on the moon during their first meeting and he had never made a secret of the fact that he disliked Reed Richards. The ones who could be considered closer to him were Strange and Stark, and even his relationship with Stark had always been rather tense with how many times Iron Man and the rest of the founding Avengers got tricked by a villain into thinking that Hulk was out of control; which was literally how the founding members of the group had met.

 

But him? No, he was the only one who truly had been friends with Hulk due to their shared time as fellow members. Yet he hadn't been ready to defend the gamma mutate like Namor had been. The king of Atlantis and douches had been a better friend to Hulk than he had been. Having his hands broken and then beaten up even more after he had the genius idea of letting a universal threat level demon inside his body hadn't been nearly enough as far as punishments went for his betrayal and he could feel that clearly as the Sorcerer Supreme.

 

He couldn't help but wonder if that was the reason he had been so willing to teach Hiro Kala when Cyclops had called him and told him how the son of Hulk was a potential reality warper, much like Wanda had been. Maybe that was another reason he had accepted, to help the mutants with a reality warper when he had so spectacularly failed with the last one.
It felt selfish yet he couldn't help it. After all the boy was tHrEaT

 

No!

 

No, he wasn't and even if he had the potential to become one he still deserved the benefit of doubt; to be given a chance. Not simply because Strange owed that to the young man's father and himself.

 

"So, what's next?"

 

"You have successfully managed to cast the magic circles so next will be to enlarge and strengthen them in order to create a shield.

 

But because it was the right thing to do.

 

 

---

 

 

"So, what's big and grey guy's problem?" Rockslide asked as he sat down. "I mean the big and grey guy who isn't me." And then pointed at Skaar who was sitting by the beach and looked like he was sulking.

 

"Kala has gone somewhere, though no one is telling where, and apparently that's how Skaar is when his brother isn't around." Noriko said with a shrug as she bit into her burger.

 

The way Skaar looked so down without his brother would have been almost amusing if it wasn't for the fact that most of the people around were still wary around the son of Hulk. Even more so than they were with Kala since no one could forget that Skaar truly was the son of Hulk. And if there was something that anyone with a half working brain was wary of, it was an upset Hulk.

 

"I'm gonna try to cheer him up." She said with a sigh and threw the wrapping of her burger into the trash before walking up to Skaar, out of everyone on the island she had known him the longest and even if they weren't exactly friends; she'd like to think that they were at least friendly acquaintances now. She had been the one to almost convince him to reenact a Getsuga Tensho after all.

 

"Hey." She said as she finally was in arm reach of Skaar. "You wanna come down, it can't be fun just sitting here all by yourself." She smiled at the huge form of the son of Hulk, somewhat dismayed about the fact that he didn't seem to be really fond of his more human form; he looked adorable in that form.

 

He currently wasn't adorable though, as a matter of fact he suddenly got scarier as he got up with a snarl. The only reason she didn't just piss herself in fear was the fact that he was snarling in another direction instead of at her. The reason became clear as she looked at the same direction and immediately called upon her powers, creating sparks around her hands, as she saw someone was there.

 

"Quite the welcoming." The man said with a smile as he pushed his glassed back up and put his backpack down before holding up his hands in a surrendering position. "Not here to fight, can't actually fight anyway."

 

"Who are you?" She demanded as the other students she had been with a few moments before ran towards them. Within a moment the man was surrounded by young mutants who did not take kindly to strangers in their new home.

 

"You don't remember me? I'm not sure if I should be happy or disappointed, it's kind of a new thing for me." The man said with a chuckle. "Especially since you have that guy with you so you should have some idea. I've been told the resemblance is uncanny." He said with a chuckle as he pointed at Skaar, whose snarl just got even more prominent.

 

It took a moment more than Noriko would like to admit but she finally understood what the man meant and a few moments later, so did the rest of the people around him. And the words left her mouth before she realized.

 

"Hulk."

 

"It's Banner actually. The other guy is... I guess you could say that he's on sabbatical." Bruce Banner said with a chuckle. "Now then, can you guys take me to your leader? I'm here for my parent teacher conference."

Chapter 33

"This is quite the welcoming committee." Bruce Banner, better known to the world as the man who turned into the Hulk, said with a smile as he sat in front of Scott and Emma while some of the more prominent members of the X-Men like Wolverine; Beast and Colossus stood behind him, looking ready to leap into action at any moment. "I believe that I told you that the big guy isn't here anymore."

 

"With all due respect, doctor Banner, it has been proved quite strongly to us that Hulk always comes back." Scott said with a glare, the phantom pains of the time the green goliath had attacked their mansion and basically manhandled their whole team with little to no difficulty. A manhandling where Scott had found his head in the grasp of Hulk and almost got cracked open like an egg. It wasn't a pleasant memory.

 

"Heh, I guess I walked into that one." The genius scientist said with a chuckle. "Then I guess I should be assuring you that he won't be coming back today. That should be enough time for us to have a talk, preferably about a certain pair of children on your island and the chances of me meeting them in a non-hostile environment?"

 

"You already met Skaar but Kala is not currently on the island, I already sent someone to inform him of your arrival so that he can come back. And about non-hostile... that would be rather hard while on an island full of people you beat the crap out of."

 

"Would it be less hard if I apologized?" The only answer Bruce got to that was the sound of Wolverine's claws unsheathing behind him. "Guess not."

 

"Would you actually mean it?" Emma asked with a raised eyebrow. "Would you actually do things differently if you had the chance?"

 

"Of course. The day I came to your mansion, I came for a man that was the associate of the group that had, as far as I was aware, caused the explosion that killed my pregnant wife and about a million innocents near the explosions; including children." Bruce said with a glare. "If I had known that the explosion was not engineered by that insect Miek, I would have never come back to Earth and none of the war would have happened."

 

"But let's just say that you did come back, would you still have gone after Charles?" Emma frowned at the man, who seemed to be deep in thought instead of answering negative like most people in his position would do so. The only reason she didn't try to get inside his mind was that she wasn't sure how much she believed the man about Hulk being gone and not wanting to take the risk of a mind like that of Hulk's.

 

"I... probably would have went after him but not in order to kill him and I definitely wouldn't be fighting you guys." He finally said with a nod. "I would have waited in hiding till he was alone and then go up to him in order to scare him, make my displeasure towards the whole Illuminati known. Maybe rough him up enough for him to need a wheelchair for a week of two."

 

"It would have been okay to let it end at the not killing part." Scott deadpanned at the benignly smiling man. He wasn't sure how to properly process the man's words, or that he even wanted to properly process them. "Is there anything other than meeting Kala and Skaar that you wanted to do while you're here?"

 

"Well, I was thinking about taking the boys on a road trip and learn a bit more about them." Bruce said with a friendly smile as he pushed his glasses up.

 

"Absolutely not." Only to be immediately shot down by Emma. "You might not have realized it since you were in hiding for a while, but we are in a war against Osborn and are on an island full of mutants. We need all the powerhouses we have among us, or do I need to remind you what happened the last time a mutant country was founded?" She ended with a glare that promised untold mental agony at the hands of her telepathy if Bruce tried to argue.

 

The occupants in the room all could understand her point of view. The former White Queen had been on Genosha when the Sentinel attack had taken place and if it hadn't been for the emergence of her new mutation, her diamond form, during the moment of panic and stress; she too would have been a part of the mountain of corpses, just like her students.

 

"While Emma was a bit more intense than I would have been, she isn't wrong doctor Banner. Not to mention Kala has started a more... personal conflict with Norman Osborn. Staying here among us is for the safety of your sons as well."

 

"Somehow I'm having hard time believing that, but okay." Bruce said with a chuckle. "I am guessing that asking for a place to stay would be too much."

 

"There is too much animosity towards you for that, unlike Kala and Skaar who fought beside us against Osborn."

 

"Heh, go kids." The genius scientist said with a smile but Scott could swear that there was a glint  in his eyes that seemed almost sinister.

Chapter 34: Chapter 34

"I'm back." I said with a smile as I stepped out of Illyana's portal and started power walking to my destination with the Russian mutant coming behind me.

 

"You seem awfully excited for this meeting, considering the last meeting you had with the man ended up with your skull within his grasp and then everyone being sent flying by a super powered clap."

 

"Meh, most families has some form of roughhousing between fathers and sons. Not to mention it was still a far better ending compared to my worst case scenario."

 

"Which was?"

 

"Him, Skaar and I going full out and likely cracking you planet like an egg." I said with a shrug, unbothered by the stare Illyana was giving me.

 

Honestly, the news of my father's arrival on Utopia was quite unexpected. My expectations were more along the lines of Skaar and I tracking the bespectacled scientist slash green rage giant down after dealing with Osborn and then start the whole family thing, likely after Skaar and our father went a few rounds and worked out their issues; hopefully without destroying the planet.

 

Instead the man had appeared on our doorstep while I was off training with Strange, which was going quite well and I could now make portals much like Illyana except my portals didn't have a pit stop at hell. I couldn't help but wonder what I would learn during our next lesson.

 

"We're back." I said as I pushed the door open and saw Scott, Emma, Logan, Skaar and the man that I just had been talking about with Illyana. "Hello there."

 

"...you have your mother's eyes."

 

"So does every other Shadow Person throughout the universe, wanna try again?"

 

---

 

"Are these reports accurate?"

 

"As accurate as they can be without actually having been on Utopia when X-Men and Osborn's Avengers clashed." Quake said with a shrug before plopping herself on one of the crates in their newest safe house. "Don't give me that look Fury, there's a limit to how much I can learn about this without, as I've said, being there on Utopia during the battle and if I was there; I would have revealed myself by killing that son of a bitch Osborn." She said with a scoff as she looked at the one eyed former director of SHIELD, who did not appear to be amused by her words.

 

"About that..." But before he could make his bemusement clear, a man with a trench coat raised his hand and started to speak. "...not that I'm not happy about learning about how Osborn is having problems, but isn't the purpose of our little Secret Warriors is to deal with HYDRA rather than Osborn. You know, the group that has infiltrated SHIELD and has been causing tragedies since the time of Captain America?"

 

"Our purpose, Hellfire, is to do our best to protect the world. HYDRA might be one of the more obvious issues we have to deal with but knowing about potential threats is important, like the sons of Hulk." Fury said with a scowl as he crossed his arms over his chest, glaring down at Hellfire who simply shrugged.

 

"Yeah, but didn't the big green kinda wrecked everyone last time his family got hurt? I don't think immediately classifying the new members of his family as threats will do us much good in the long run."

 

"We are not classifying them as threats." One of the other members of the Secret Warriors, who had been sitting in a meditative position, said with his eyes closed. "We are merely not staying ignorant of their existence and power."

 

"It's as Eden says, this is something that's only in theoretical phase right now." Fury said with a nod towards the mutant before turning back to them. "What's more important is how one of the sons have started a personal feud against Osborn, meaning that slime ball will be going after the X-Men again soon. If we can learn when he'll do that, we can have a wider opening for our operations."

 

"So... you just wanna use them as bait?"

 

"...yes."

 

---

 

"So... training with Strange huh?"

 

"Scott and Emma seemed to think that it was a good idea, and I don't exactly have a problem with learning mystic arts. More power is always welcome." Kala said with a shrug as he leaned back on his chair and watched his brother play with some of the other mutants with his father by his side.

 

Dead god... he was a father. He still had hard time believing that, and the fact that his sons were not trying to kill him. Though that last part would likely change in the future.

 

After all, Bruce was a magnet for disasters and had absolutely no idea how to be a father. How could he, his own father had been a piece of shit that got his kicks by hitting his son for being smart and hitting his wife for trying to protect their son. Obviously that was no way to do it, as it was proven when Bruce's had kicked Brian Banner off of himself and into his mother's tomb stone, where the man had broken his neck and died.

 

There were days he wondered if that really had been an accident.

 

"I'm more interested in you though, how exactly did you manage to lose your powers? From what I've heard there were many tries on that, none of which have succeeded."

 

"After my... war, I was taken to a lab where all the gamma inside my body was siphoned off." Bruce said with a shrug. "I think it's less that my powers are gone and more they are out of juice." Which likely meant that Scott was right, Hulk would return.

 

"Something's been bothering me though. How exactly did you and your brother arrive on earth? We took the only working stone ship when we left." He asked with a frown and Kala's smile immediately turned into a frown. But what was more concerning was his eyes, they had gone colder than the space itself while somehow having the heat of hell deep inside them. And then it was gone, replaced by sadness as his son turned to him.

 

"I guess it is about time you learned the truth, about what happened after you and the Warbound left Sakaar. And it's destruction."

Chapter 35: Chapter 35

There were limits to everything, some sort of breaking point. As a scientist, Bruce Banner knew that fact very well. He had demonstrated the breaking points of many materials throughout his many... adventures as Hulk. But as he looked down at his hand, holding a broken piece of the armrest of his chair with blood running down around it, he had to admit that he was rather surprised that he had seemingly yet to truly find the limit of his anger.

 

"How nostalgic." He couldn't help but mutter with a dark smile while Kala looked at him with worry in his eyes that looked so much like his mother's. "I'm not sure how many years it's been since I was this angry and not green."

 

"So your gift is really gone?"

 

"Not entirely gone, more like out of juice and unable to replenish it at the moment." Bruce said with a sigh before looking at his son with a frown. "And it's not exactly something I would call a 'gift' anyway. It's always been more like a curse."

 

"The barren lands of Sakaar that was given life from your blood would likely argue against that."

 

"And a fat load of good that's now with the whole planet down in Galactus's gullet." Bruce said with a snort as he tried to push his anger down.

 

Surfer... how could he have lead the cosmic entity to Sakaar while knowing that Hulk was intending to build a new life there. Was this truly his destiny, to be betrayed by everyone he once called a friend?

 

"...people of Sakaar were fools, especially when it came to their belief in the legends of Sakaarson and Worldbreaker, but they did get one thing right; even if unknowingly." Kala said before turning to Bruce with an intense look in his eyes. "One can be a savior or a destroyer and what will decide that is what people deserve."

 

"What are you trying to say?"

 

"I read throughout the reports about Hulk. Every time you actually hurt someone who did not deserve it, something or someone was messing with your head; leading to people turning on you without a second thought." Bruce could feel the anger in Kala's voice. "Make no mistake father, your curse is not your powers; it's the people of this world."

 

"...you shouldn't say that, you might end up making me start my villain arc." Bruce said with a chuckle, using the words he had heard Spider-Man use a few times. "Don't you know that I am considered to be a strong enough to be a danger to everyone in the world if I went evil?"

 

"Not my problem. You're family, the rest of the world isn't." And that was that, Kala looked very proud of himself for his deduction. So proud that he seemed to be glowing with pride, which finally made Bruce lose control and start to laugh.

 

The pain from the news about Sakaar hadn't disappeared, and they never would.

 

But for a moment, just for a single moment, it felt like everything was fine.

 

---

 

"You want me to what?"

 

"To come with me. There are certain... things that I need to do so I can't just stay here. So I was thinking that you and your brother might want to accompany me. Who knows, I might even be able to make use of some of my experience as Hulk and give a good advice or two." He said with a smile and I had to admit, a part of me really wanted to accept.

 

Yet I couldn't just say yes. It might not have been the plan but I had gotten rather attached to the X-Men and leaving them right after we had declared war on Osborn and his weird haircut felt really irresponsible.

 

And that was without mentioning Skaar's own enmity against our father. Just leaving him here would be...

 

"I'll come with you." Wait wha?

 

My head snapped to the side as I looked at the small form of Skaar with wide eyes. He was going? With no prompting from me? Who was this and what had he done to my adorable anti-social brother?!

 

"If I go with you, Kala will know where you are any time. So he can just follow us with portals if we need him."

 

"Your training with Strange has come that far? That's impressive."

 

"That's not the point!" I snapped before looking at Skaar. "Are... are you really sure about this? Noriko and Santo will be sad if you're gone." I said, still surprised how easily my lil bro had made friends with the other kids.

 

"I know but... this is something that I have to do." He said with a sigh before turning to our father. "I don't like you." And then started speaking with his usual Sakaaran grace. "I don't understand why Kala is so insistent in me getting to know you or why our mother loved you so much. But they both love you anyway and I will get to know you and decide whether they are right to do so or not." And then he started to grow, his skin turning grayish green and his muscles bulging as he towered over our father.

 

"And if they are wrong, I will make my displeasure known. The Sakaaran way."

Chapter 36: Chapter 36

"Sigh."

 

"How long do you intend to just mope around like that?" Illyana asked me with a glare, looking irritated; which was a first as I had yet to see such a mundane emotion from her. My answer to her question?

 

"...sigh."

 

"You're not even actually sighing anymore! You just say the word!" Huh, so Illyana's ears go red when she gets too irritated, it was kind of cute. Such a shame that I wasn't in a state to enjoy it.

 

"I can't help it, I feel so lonely and depressed without Skaar." I said with sad eyes as I tried to convey my sorrows to Illyana, hoping that she would understand my pain.

 

"It hasn't even been a day since he left." Which was rather dumb, now that I think about it; expecting sympathy from the girl who grew up in a literal hell. "Honestly, I thought you grew up on a planet of barbarians and were separated at birth. The fuck did you do before meeting your brother?"

 

"I searched for my brother." I replied without much thought. "I have been aware of his existence from the time we were in mother's womb. We are connected in a way hard for others to understand. A connection that has grown even more firm after we obtained the Old Power for ourselves." And it had been glorious. The sensation of the whole planet under my feet, billions of souls moving around with their inconsequential lives and yet my brother alone shined like a star to my senses. Shame that everything had went to shit not soon after that with Galactus eating our planet and mother banishing us to earth and all.

 

"To think that this and the guy who was bitch slapping Osborn around the island are the same person."

 

"You talk like anyone in this place wouldn't bitch slap that overgrown tick around for funsies. And because of how ugly his hair is."

 

"His hair is ugly." Illyana said with a sagely nod, making me wonder why everyone else were so scared around her. She wasn't that different than others when she didn't remind them how she had grown up in hell with her dark humor.

 

"Seriously, there is no way that shit can be nat-" I suddenly stopped as my eyes widened and got up to my feet with a jump. "Something's wrong with Emma."

 

"...what?"

 

"No time to explain!" I yelled as I raised my hand and created a portal. "Come with me!" And then jumped through it to the Cerebro chamber. Coming face to face with Scott holding Emma in one arm and ready to shoot a blast until he realized it was me.

 

"What are you doing here?"

 

"I sensed something happened to Emma." I said as I knelt beside the unconscious telepath. "What happened to her?"

 

"See for yourself." Scott said as he pointed up at the holographic planet above us.

 

And the red dots on it.

 

---

 

"We need to go now!" Hope yelled as he slammed her hands down on the table.

 

"No one is saying otherwise Hope, we simply..."

 

"No! We need to go! I need to go!" The redheaded mutant yelled at Beast, who had just been trying to calm her down. "This is why I'm here! This is why Cable saved me!"

 

Scott couldn't help but flinch at the mention of his son... from his kind-of-granddaughter. God, things had been so much simpler before time travel.

 

It was a hard pill to swallow, the fact that his son had apparently died while sending Hope back to their time. Something that she did not seem to be taking well either with how desperate she looked right now but she wasn't wrong.

 

Hope was the spark, the spark that was meant to reignite the flame of mutantkind throughout the world after the tragedy of the House of M; the first mutant born since that day. That was the whole reason Cable was the one to raise her, in order to protect her from all those who would wish to extinguish her spark and bring the symbolic end of their race.

 

Though... there was a part of him wondering how much of that still held true as he looked at Kala at the corner of the room, leaning against the wall.

 

It was hard to remember sometimes due to how he looked but the son of Hulk too was a mutant born after the House of M, even if Scott wasn't sure how exactly he and his brother had aged so fast. Unfortunately he couldn't be sure whether it was Hope or Kala who was born first.

 

Not that it mattered since the rest of the world, and by world he meant bastards like the Friends of Humanity, thought of her as the one that would bring back the mutants so she needed their protection; more so than an average mutant at least.

 

"There are five different mutants on Cerebro, I doubt that you can go to them all at the same time." Kala said with a snort, making the redhead girl glare at him. "The obvious solution is to split and go to all of them at once, if not then just with more than one group."

 

"Kala is right, we need to get to them as soon as possible." Scott said with a nod before turning to Hope and pausing for a moment before sighing. "Hope, you're coming with me and Logan. We'll go to the signal at Nigeria. Kitty, Piotr and Kala will go to the signal at Ukraine. The rest will stay here in Utopia in case someone tries to attack us." He said before getting up and walking out of the room with Hope coming behind him.

 

It was time.

Chapter 37: Chapter 37

"So, anything we know about this new mutant friend of ours?" Kala asked as he walked out of the portal with Kitty and Piotr walking behind him, the Russian mutant already in his living metal form.

 

"Other than the fact that they are probably being hated by ordinary people, nothing." Kitty said with a sigh as she looked around in order to see if there was anything that might be a clue about the new mutant. "Except that Emma claimed that there was something... unstable about the signals. Not that I have any idea what that might mean."

 

"Doesn't it mean that they are near death?" Kala asked with a tilt of his head and Kitty could not help but be unnerved about how nonchalant he seemed about such a thing.

 

"No, there have been times where Cerebro detected mutants in such situations and that didn't make the signals unstable. Instead they were 'urgent', or at least that's how professor had described it to me." Piotr said with a frown as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I think it's their mutations. These are the first mutants since M-Day and therefore there might be something making their powers unstable or erratic."

 

"Then we have to find them fast." Kitty said with a frown before turning to Kala. "Can't you feel their minds? A new mutant should be having thoughts quite a bit different than the rest of the people around them."

 

"I can't distinguish between this many people, most of my training till now was focused more on telekinetic part of the mind arts." Kala said with a frown as he gripped his chin. "Though the mind of someone in danger or distress should be giving off a far more noticeable signal compared to others, yet there is nothing like that." He said as he walked without much care for the stares the people around were giving him before turning around.

 

"Are you guys even sure that this is the right coordinate?" He asked with a raised eyebrow but before Kitty or Piotr could reassure him about the coordinates, something unexpected happened.

 

And by something unexpected, she meant that a brunette boy with huge muscles suddenly jumping from the crowd at Kala with a roar and then both of them falling downhill.

 

"...what the hell?" Kitty asked herself as her mind took a moment before properly processing what happened before their eyes before she and Piotr broke into a sprint and ran after Kala and the mysterious attacker that they were pretty sure to be the new mutant they had been looking for.

 

"Do you think we will ever have a mission without some complications like this?" Piotr asked as they kept running.

 

"I would say 'when pigs fly' but I'm starting to think that a mission with no complications is actually more impossible than that." Kitty gritted out before her phone started ringing. "Kind of busy at the moment Scott."

 

"Kitty, I need you guys to keep the mutant busy and away from the populace till we get there!"

 

"Not sure if that's possible."

 

"You have to! The reason the signals were unstable is because their powers are out of control!" The leader of the X-Men exclaimed and Kitty ignored Piotr's expression that practically screamed 'called it'.

 

"Hope can get their powers back under control. So you need to keep the mutant busy till we get there." He kept talking but Kitty was not really listening anymore, she was far more focused on the sight before her.

 

"Scott."

 

"Yes?"

 

"I don't think we will need to wait." Kitty said as she kept looking at Kala who was holding a hand in front of the formerly berserk mutant, who was now sitting on his ass with a slightly confused but calm expression on his face.

 

---

 

"What do you mean you stabilized him?" Scott asked as a migraine like no other before made itself known to him while Kala simply shrugged.

 

"Not really sure. I first tried to stop him telepathically but his mind was far too much like that of an animal so I couldn't do it. Then I tried to use the Old Power but he just calmed down before I could." The gray skinned mutant said as he patted the new mutant's head, while said mutant simply leaned into the touch with a content expression on his face. "His name is Teon by the way. Teon Macik, and someone should probably contact his parents."

 

"...sure, we'll do that." Scott said with a sigh, finally admitting his defeat and letting the alien mutant walk away since he obviously had no idea how he did what he did.

 

This... this was not normal. It definitely wasn't. How the fuck was Kala able to stabilize a mutant's power?! It made sense with Hope since her power was connecting with the powers of other mutants but Kala was a telekinesis and telepath combo, even if there was a very real possibility of him being a reality warper as well.

 

Was that how he did it? Just warp the reality so that Teon's powers were no longer out of control, even if the difference wasn't that much since Teon apparently had the powers of Sabretooth with an even more animal-like mind. If that was the case, then Scott prayed that the lessons with Strange were going well cause he so wasn't prepared to deal with a reality warping mutant going out of control today; or any day!

 

"So, where to next?" Though it seemed like he wouldn't have to worry about that just today. Though, why did it look like Hope was glaring at Kala's back?

---

Chapter 38: Chapter 38

"Canada, why is it always Canada?" Kitty said with a groan as we exited the portal.

 

"Is this place really that bad?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

 

"Wolverine is Canadian."

 

"I need no further explanation."

 

We had separated from Scott's team in order to reach as many new mutants as fast as possible.

 

Though there was a moment of slowness where I tried to get Teon to go to Utopia and just wait for me instead of following us. The slightly feral mutant seemed to have gotten attached to me and was being a bit clingy. Not that I was bothered much since he reminded me of a younger Skaar; except somewhat dumber, on all fours, normal skin-toned, less muscular and without a sword.

 

...hmm, maybe he wasn't like Skaar that much?

 

"So what's the plan?"

 

"Find the more than likely rampaging mutant, get you near them and hope that whatever happened with Teon was not just some sort of fluke." Piotr said as he looked at the tablet-like device in his hand. Something that he claimed was getting coordinates fro Cerebro so that we could find our new mutant friend, making me wonder why he didn't use it while we were searching for Teon.

 

But before I could actually ask him about my very questionable question, we heard some sort of swooshing sound above us and when we looked up, we saw a bluish blur in the air.

 

"I think we found them." I said with a sigh as I gathered the Old Power and shout out after our newest mutant friend.

 

---

 

'SomebodyhelpImscaredpleasehelp!'

 

Laurie Tromette's thoughts were running faster than they ever had as she was panicking, because she was fucking flying!

 

It all started a few hours ago when her whole body was engulfed in pain unlike any other she felt before. Then her hair started to fall off, her skin turned hard and bluish and just now she started to, repeating once more, fucking flying! She had no idea what was happening, and she had exams coming up, her situation with her parents since the racing incident in high school and this would definitely undo all of her progress with them if she didn't die hitting something and ohgod; she was going far too fast! She was gonna...

 

"You come around here often?" Her panic driven thoughts were cut short as she head a voice from beside her and saw a guy who looked a little bit older than her with gray skin and whitish blue outline around his body flying next to her. "Though you really might want to slow down, it's not exactly safe to go this fast so soon." He then reached out to her and grabbed her by shoulder.

 

And the pain stopped.

 

The excruciating pain that had been destroying her body for the last few hours simply stopped and Laurie could feel herself slowing down, though she wasn't sure if that was because of her own wishes or if it was the guy beside her doing something.

 

Before long, they had stopped and went down to the ground safely. And then Laurie could feel some of the bluish extra skin on her start to fall off.

 

Which was when the gray skinned guy clapped his hands and somehow made a blanket appear from thin air, which he then wrapped around her.

 

"You okay now."

 

"...yes." Maybe this day wasn't that bad.

 

---

 

"So it really isn't a fluke then." Scott said and even though she couldn't hear what was being said from the other end of his communication device, she could roughly imagine what was being said.

 

Kala had stabilized another mutant.

 

How?

 

How?!

 

How?!

 

How exactly was Kala able to stabilize these new mutants like she was able to?!

 

Her powers were literally connecting to the powers of other mutants, Kala on the other hand was a telekinesis and telepath combo with some cosmic energy bullshit. Was that how it was, some sort of effect of his energy? But he told Scott that Teon stabilized before he could use his energy powers. So how?

 

HOW?!

 

"Hope, are you okay?" Gabriel, the speedster mutant that they had just stabilized, asked with a concerned look on his face.

 

Hope took a deep breath before smiling at him and Idie, the thermokinetic mutant she had stabilized before Gabriel, and reassuring them that she was fine as the Blackbird started to rise up so that they could go to the last mutant.

 

Yeah, she was fine. She would do what she was meant to do and make sure the future she and her father lived in would never become the reality. Make sure that the mutant race would not go extinct and prove Bishop wrong about her role in the dark future.

 

That was her duty, as the so called 'mutant messiah'.

 

That's who she was after all.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

...right?

Chapter 39: Chapter 39

"Well... that's a shit show if I've ever seen one." I said with a whistle as I looked at the ruined visage of Tokyo. The once beautiful city was covered in what I could only describe as flesh with machinery in it. All of it connecting back to one giant pillar of flesh on a building away from us.

 

"A giant monster in Tokyo, I'm surprised that this is the first time I'm dealing with something like this." Kitty said with wide eyes as she looked around and Piotr sighed beside her.

 

"In our defense, it's mostly Fin Fang Foom who rampages in Asia and it tends to be the Avengers who deal with that monster." The Russian mutant explained.

 

"What do we do?" Laurie, who no longer was blue skinned but still had red hair and was wearing some spare clothes Kitty gave her, asked and I wondered why I hadn't just made a portal back to Utopia and punt her through it before coming here. At least she wasn't just rushing into danger like Teon likely would have.

 

"Gotta find the mutant and get Kala to stabilize his powers like he did with you." Kitty said before looking around. "The problem is that he can be inside of any of this... mass." She seemed to be unwilling to say 'flesh' for some reason. Also, was she serious?

 

"You don't think that he's just in that huge chunk of flesh that's connected to every other tendril of flesh in the city?" I asked with a raised eyebrow as I pointed at the mentioned huge chunk of flesh.

 

"Well... yes." Kitty said with a cough, looking embarrassed that she somehow missed that. "But there is a chance that it might just be a decoy so be careful."

 

"Sure." I said with a shrug before glowing with the Old Power and leaped towards the flesh pillar.
It took me several more jumps before I reached my target and I had to admit that the sight of a giant pillar of flesh with machinery in it was quite disturbing, even compared to some abominations that masqueraded as wildlife I had seen on Sakaar.

 

"Out of control or not, gotta pity the poor bastard who ended up with this mutation." I muttered to myself as I stepped forward and raised my fist before stopping.

 

"This is still flesh, so will it hurt them if I tear it apart?" I wondered as I stood still for a moment before remembering the state Tokyo was in and shrugged. "Guess I'll apologize if it does hurt." And punched the pillar of flesh, my fist going through the pale substance and machinery parts, but before I could do anything else; I felt a probe in my mind, trying to drag me in.

 

"So not only flesh based power but also some sort of telepath?" I said as the probes became more and more frequent, uncaring that they did absolutely nothing. But then they stopped as I pulled my fist out of the flesh. "Ah, the psionic part of your powers are directly connected to the flesh manipulation then." As disgusting it might seem from outside, this was a very interesting power.

 

"Far too interesting to let it be unknown." I said with a grin as I once more plunged my arm into the mass of flesh and then let the probe drag me in.

 

---

 

"A visitor, finally." And then I came face to face with the mutant that had been causing all of this, though I couldn't say that was such a great thing since black veins were visible on his face, as if they were trying to get out. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was black in a more inky way rather than natural black hair.

 

"Though I have to admit that I hadn't thought my first visitor would be so... unique." Oh, had I mentioned that he was also sitting on a throne that was made out of his own flesh and connected to him through it, much like everything else I could see in this mental world.

 

"I get that a lot. I'm glad to finally meet the little troublemaker as well. Love what you have done with your mental world, it's all very... fleshy."

 

"Merely a preview to end of the real world." He declared with an ugly smile. "But that's for later, I have yet to introduce myself. I am Uedo Kenji, and you are?"

 

"Hiro Kala, you can just call me Kala though." I said as I looked around. "And this is what you want to do with your powers? Seems kinda wasteful."

 

"Art does tend to appear that way to philistines, but this is the best future for the world." Kenji said with a smile as his throne seemed to get bigger and I looked directly into his eyes. "For the existence and life are both meaningless and are nothing more than a simple case of cells dividing and trying to multiply while ignoring the true state of the universe being one of non-existence, of void. And I shall be the one to make that into reality!"

 

And saw madness.

 

Yet that wasn't all that there was in his eyes, there was also a small amount of fear and hesitation, along with other similar emotions that were deeply buried under the madness. The only explanation I had was that the young man before me was a nihilist but the out of control powers of his, which were psionic in nature, had taken that to an unhealthy extreme; out of his own control.

 

Something that I could fix.

 

"So you think life and all of our actions are meaningless, that nothing has purpose."

 

"Yes! Exactly! That's how it..."

 

"Then that means that there is nothing stopping us from living our lives." I cut Kenji off with a smile and started to walk towards him.

 

"...what?"

 

"If there is no purpose, then that simply means that future is an adventure and it's entirely ours to shape."

 

"No! That's not what I mean! Existence is a torture and the only future is suffering! Because nothing we do matters! None of it has meaning!" 

 

"Then I shall give it meaning myself." I said and I could feel the same energy that I had felt when I had stabilized Laurie and could feel a light come out of my soul.

 

"So I say, all will be well!" Then I grabbed the wide eyed projection of Kenji and the whole mental scape was filled with light.

Chapter 40: Chapter 40

"Easy there." Kala said as he pulled the once rampaging now stabilized mutant out of the flesh pillar, looking like a very ordinary young Asian boy except for the single metal wire-like substance that was on his chest and some visible veins around it, while Hope could only watch and then he conjured a blanket and wrapped it around the naked teen. "Hey guys, this is Kenji and we should probably get out of here before an angry mob forms and demands our heads or worse, for us to pay for the damages." Alien mutant said as he gestured to the ruined buildings.

 

"Just open a portal to Blackbird." Cyclops said with a sigh.

 

"Wouldn't it be better if I just opened one to Utopia?"

 

"It's tradition." Kitty said with a shrug and Kala created a portal for everyone to go back to Blackbird.

 

The flight back to Utopia was relatively calm except for when Kenji woke up and hysterically demanded something to draw with and something to draw on, which Kala provided him with, and spent the rest of the flight with a dangerously huge smile as he kept drawing what Hope could only assume to be a vortex of eldritch abominations with a very familiar grey figure in the centre.

 

"So is that your power, creating painting supplies?" Gabriel asked with a smirk. "If so, kudos to you for stopping artist kaiju there; it couldn't have been easy." He said as he pointed at Kenji, who still seemed to be in his own little world; uncaring of anything other than keep drawing and sometimes cackling while muttering something about 'true understanding'.

 

"Not really, that's just some magic that I've been dabbling on my free time."

 

"…you dabble on painting supply magic?" Gabriel asked with a tilt of his head but Hope's attention was on Idir, whose head had just snapped in attention when she heard the word 'magic' and had a rather prominent frown on her face.

 

"I dabble in magic in general, what I did is simply a storage spell. I was carrying the supplies already."

 

"…why?" Hope asked with an incredulous tone, not able to comprehend why anyone would bring painting supplies on a mission.

 

"I have a pocket dimension for storage, I filled it with pretty much anything I could find and think that it might be useful."

 

Yeah... she could not argue against that logic. Not after all those times she and her father wished they had something very specific in their travels.

 

...and now she was sad due to her thoughts about her dead father, great.

 

"The place we're going teaches magic?" Idie asked with a frown, looking like she did not exactly like that idea.

 

"Not really, I just have some sort of an apprenticeship with Doctor Strange. There is only one person other than me who can use magic back on Utopia, though you might want to stay clear of her."

 

"...I guess it's not anything that surprising. Sinful practices in an abode of monsters seem fitting." Idie said while looking down and Hope could only wince at that. She knew that Idie's mental state wasn't exactly the best but this much...

 

She knew that Idie's out of control powers had ended up killing her family and friends and that memory would likely haunt her for the rest of her days but seeing herself as a monster? She had to see that what happened was an accident and not her fault, if only Hope knew of some way to help her.

 

"Monster?" Kala asked with a raised eyebrow before laughing. "Sorry to disappoint you lil miss, but the only one here who have the right to call themselves a monster is me." He said with a grin that showed teeth.

 

"Yeah, and what gives you that right?" Gabriel asked with a scoff.

 

"Power and heritage." Kala said proudly. "For I am Hiro Kala, the son of Hulk."

 

"...Hulk?" Gabriel muttered with wide eyes, which every other new mutant on the Blackbird also had. "You mean the green giant monster who just recently kicked the collective asses of the Avengers Hulk?" Gabriel practically squeaked the last part out and shrunk down in his seat when Kala gave a smirk with an evil glint in his eyes.

 

The flight after that was silent except for the sound of Kenji painting, none of them exactly sure what to say anymore. Before long, the Blackbird reached their destination. Formerly Asteroid M, currently known as, Utopia.

 

"Friend Kala!" Where they were immediately greeted by Hercules, though greeted may have been a misnomer since the greek hero immediately went to the son of Hulk. "Friend Kala, why have you not tell me about your sister?!"

 

"...my what?!"

Chapter 41: Chapter 41

"I feel like I said something that I shouldn't have." I heard Hercules said something along such lines but I was not listening. There was only one thought inside my mind as I walked towards the small light that I could see only in the back of my mind that indicated my brother, and therefore also our father, was on the island.

 

A sister.

 

A sister.

 

I had a sister!

 

I didn't know why exactly that was getting such an intense reaction from me. I already had known about the existence of Lyra, the daughter of Hulk and Thundra from the dystopian future with a war between gender based societies, so it shouldn't be a surprise to me that Hercules had somehow met her.

 

And yet I could feel my fingers twitch and a confused smile appear on my face at the thought of her, at the thought of sister who I had never met and likely did not have a high opinion of me due to her upbringing by a ultra misandrist society.

 

Yet as I finally reached my father and brother, the first words that came out of my mouth were...

 

"Where's my sister?"

 

---

 

"What are your thoughts about this... Lyra?" Norman Osborn asked his deputy director, basically glorified secretary, Victoria Hand with a raised eyebrow and the bespectacled woman answered immediately.

 

"She's dangerous."

 

"No shit she's dangerous, I meant other than that." Norman rolled his eyes.

 

"...I believe that while her interest in you is concerning, especially when one considers the kind of thinking that her people who seem similar to Thundra must have imparted into her, it's not exactly the most important problem." Victoria said with a sigh. "While she does appear to be a master martial artist along with a Hulk, we believe that she doesn't get stronger with anger or she would have punched right through Hawkeye. Instead she seems to be actually get weaker with anger, rather ironic considering her heritage, so I would say that it's the other woman that is more concerning." She said as she pressed a button on the remote in her hand and a projection of a very muscular woman with black hair with red streaks, pure yellow eyes and completely red skin.

 

"It hasn't even been a month since the first sighting of that Red-Hulk and we already have a female version. At least the green one had the decency to wait for a few years." Norman huffed as he looked at the projection. "And she also has demonstrated Red-Hulk's heat emission."

 

"Yes, as Ares can confirm from his burns."

 

"Do we have any idea who she might be? Or are we in the dark same as the Red-Hulk situation?"

 

"Unfortunately, but she did show a rather intense dislike of Bruce Banner when he appeared."

 

"Oh then it's no problem. We simply have a list of suspect consisting of, every damn person with a grudge against Hulk on the planet." Norman gritted out as he slammed his fist on his desk. "How goes our search for Banner and his brute son?"

 

"Not well, we have completely lost them after the battle. It seems like Banner is using Sterns' old teleportation technology." Victoria said with a shake of her head and Norman had to take a deep breath in order to calm himself down. It was one disaster after another.

 

He still did not understand why Banner, his brute son and that moron Hercules had appeared nor what these female Hulks wanted and it was starting to get on his nerves. That despite all the power he had managed to accumulate as the director of SHIELD and the leader of the Avengers, there was still people running circles around him with their plans.

 

Was this how Spider-Man felt when he had been. NO! No, he was not that thing and he would not hear it otherwise. Not even in his own mind, he refused.

 

"Tell Hawkeye and Marvel to broaden the range of their search and not to come back before they manage to find something." Norman said with a huff before a glint appeared in his eyes. "And start making inquiries about X-Men's latest activities around the globe."

 

If he couldn't deal with them by himself, he could just delegate that task to those who wanted to do it. And there were lots of people concerned about the possible reemergence of the mutant-kind.

Chapter 42: Chapter 42

"So my sister is with this... Red She-Hulk?" Kala asked with a tilt of his head and Bruce sighed at the fixation his son had on his newly discovered sister. Not that he didn't understand as he was using all of his mental discipline to not become fixated himself. No matter how much he wanted to, there were far more pressing issues. Far more pressing than the fact that he had gone from no children to three in less than a year!

 

No... calm down... breathe in and out...

 

Yes, he was calm. Which he needed to be in order to figure out what was the deal with this Red She-Hulk. He already had the joy of meeting her male counterpart but their goals were still unclear except that they had already fought several heroes and the first sighting of Red She-Hulk was right after the disappearance of Jen. A connection that Bruce really did not like.

 

"We don't know what she wants or why your… sister went with her. While they seemed to be at odds with Osborn's Avengers, I doubt that they are our allies either." After all, the enemy of your enemy wasn't always your friend. Sometimes they were simply another enemy. "I'm concerned on how, whoever is the one that mutated them, managed to form such stable gamma mutates. Not to mention Jen's disappearance."

 

"Do you think that someone kidnapped and then used her blood to make them?" Kala asked with a raised eyebrow but Bruce shook his head.

 

"She was more than likely kidnapped but the timeline of Red She-Hulk's first sightings and Jen's disappearance is far too close. Not to mention Red Hulk appeared before her disappearance." He said as he pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the headache coming. "I think it might have to do with the people from AIM who kept me in a lab after my last... rampage." That was definitely better than saying 'World War Hulk' as some people did. "But there has to be someone else involved, no one in AIM is good enough to create perfect gamma mutates like them." At best they would have been able to create hybridized versions like the Gamma Corps.

 

Or was he underestimating them? They had managed to somehow drain him fully of gamma after all. An achievement that should have been impossible for a hack like MODOK or anyone following him.

 

"Whoever is helping them, they must be an expert of some sort when it comes to gamma." Kala said with a frown as he looked up with his arms crossed and Bruce's eyes widened as all the pieces fit together. An expert of gamma who could track him, track Jen, manage to create perfect gamma mutates and would be an enemy to both Bruce and Osborn's Avengers. The only one who actually fit all the criteria was...

 

"Sterns." He growled out the name of the bastard who had tormented him throughout years, ever since that time he had stopped the bastard's 'genius plan' to take over the United States through a series of spy rings. Ever since then, the once dimwitted and now super intelligent maniac had made it his mission to cause as much misery to Bruce as he could. The bastard had even ruined his first wedding with... with Betty.

 

"By Sterns I'm guessins you mean the lowlife who orchestrated the events that led to the demise of Hiroim Oldstrong." Yes, he had done that as well. It seemed like Kala's and Skaar's feelings towards Sterns was not much different than Bruce's own feelings, going by the dark scowl and growling respectively, which was nice.

 

It seemed like, for once, he knew how to spend some quality time with his sons.

 

---

 

"You seem troubled." I couldn't help but notice as I looked at Hercules and made it known. It was strange to see the usually boisterous son of Zeus being so quiet.

 

"Aye, I guess I am." He admitted with a sigh. "I have received a message from my sister."

 

"Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?" I asked with a smirk and Hercules let out a small chuckle, his father's dalliances and the results of those dalliances were rather well known.

 

"I guess I did deserve that." His smile then dropped and he sighed. "The sister I talk about is Athena, the goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare. She requests my aid."

 

"You don't seem enthusiastic about it."

 

"That's because I am not. Not only I'm already trying to help your father and brother as much as I can in their search for these new Red Hulks but I also am wary of whatever my sister might want help with."

 

"Don't have a good relationship with her?" I asked. I already knew that his relationship with his brother Ares could be called antagonistic on a good day but I knew nothing of his relationship with the other war deity of Olympus.

 

"Not a bad one but... complex." He said with a sigh. "Years ago when one of my uncles left me to die in the mountains as a small babe, it was Athena who found me and orchestrated Hera breastfeeding me. She was also the one who helped me deal with Stymphalian birds, my sixth labor, by scaring them with loud noises so that I could shoot them while taking cover under the pelt of the Nemean Lion. But whenever I met her throughout my life, she always seemed to be looking through me rather than at me. I didn't care during my days as a hero but now that I have young Amodeus with me, whom I almost lost during a quest she sent me on, I find myself wary of her possible schemes."

 

...wow, that was a lot more than I had expected and also far more responsible than I had expected of Hercules. Not trying to badmouth him but the son of Zeus tended to give the impression of a particularly dumb golden retriever. Lovable but not exactly what you would call bright. Hearing him think so deeply about possible consequences of his actions were strangely humbling.

 

"How about meeting her with someone neutral then? Someone who is willing to hear her out but isn't willing to put up with any of her bullshit."

 

"My sister is a goddess my friend, there aren't many people who could get away with not being willing to put up with her bullshit." Hercules said with an empty chuckle and I simply shrugged.

 

"Just giving out a random idea."

 

"Thanks anyway my friend." Son of Zeus said with a smile as he patted my shoulder and left, though I could swear I heard him mutter something about some 'old lady'.

Chapter 43: Chapter 43

"Just so you know, Emma will be livid when she realizes that we snuck out." I said with a smile as I looked at my father, who simply shrugged while fiddling with the gadget in his hand.

 

"You seem rather popular at Utopia, I'm sure that you'll be able convince her that it was no big deal?"

 

"Shouldn't you, as the responsible adult here, be the one to convince her?"

 

"I just took you and your brother to the latest site of gamma signature without notifying your... headmistress, I guess. What part of me looks like a responsible adult?" He said with a laugh and I couldn't help but agree with him, much like the rest of our motley crew which was made up by my brother, Hercules and Cho.

 

"Indeed, why you might just be the second least responsible father I've ever met my friend." Hercules said with a chuckle. "Right after my father."

 

We joked and laughed for a while, it almost made me feel like we were a normal family instead of a group of very troubled individuals with power to reshape the world if we ever went out of control.

 

"Any news from the Warbound?" I asked while looking around, both with my eyes and mind and through the earth.

 

"No, they should be here soon though." My father said with a frown. "It's not like them to be late but the tracker on Rick is showing that he's coming close and he's supposed to be with them."

 

"You have a tracker on your friend?" Amadeus asked with a raised eyebrow but no judgement.

 

"Someone needs to keep an eye on Rick as much a possible, though I expect that eve this won't help me keep him out of trouble for long." Father said with a scoff before looking down on his device. "He's moving awfully fast though, did they manage to find a plane or something?"

 

"Not one Sakaaran rock ships?" I asked and he shook his head.

 

"They… broke the last one a week ago when Red Hulk attacked them." He said with a sigh.

 

"Yeah, I don't think your friend is coming with a plane." Amadeus cut into our conversation with the grave of a bull in a china shop.

 

"What makes you think that?" The answer my father got to his question was Amadeus pointing to the sky and when we followed his finger, our gazes found a very blue meteor flying towards us. Though it was rather weird that the meteor had arms and legs and was flaying them around in panic.

 

"Incoming!" The meteor screamed and we all ran away for cover, with Hercules grabbing Amadeus and Skaar grabbing father, before the meteor impacted the ground.

 

When the smoke cleared out, the true identity of the meteor was revealed to be a huge creature that looked somewhat similar to Abomination; whose ass Skaar and I had kicked. Except instead of the green and scaly skin, this one had blue plated skin; kind of like that of an armadillo.

 

"Rick." Father yelled as he got out of Skaar's grasp and ran towards the downed blue giant that I finally realized the identity of.

 

Rick Jones, the irresponsible and stupid kid who had been close to the gamma test who had to be saved by father and indirectly caused him to become the Hulk. Later on he would become something of a sidekick, and one of the few people who never sold father out, of Hulk while getting some powers and then losing them. His current power was being a blue gamma mutate, better known as, A-Bomb.

 

"Heya Bruce." A-Bomb said with a groan as he raised his right arm with what looked like an herculean amount of effort. "So, I got some bad news and am really hoping that you got a way to move us real quick cause the bad news is that we got ambushed and I don't think the rest of the gang is doing very hot right now."

 

That was all I needed to hear before using telekinesis to levitate my father, Amadeus and A-Bomb before flying in the direction the blue gamma mutate had came from; with Hercules and Skaar coming from behind with huge leaps.

 

The flight likely took less than five minutes, yet each second felt like hours until I finally reached the Warbound fighting their assailants. Four brightly dressed men and one who looked like he was made of stone. The identity of the first four was easy to discern from the huge crowbar one of them was holding, identifying them as the Wrecking Crew. The last one on the other hand I couldn't place, that is until I looked at the Warbound.

 

Korg the Kronan and Kate were fine, if looking worn down. Brood and Eloe on the other hand, they were not there. Instead there were a pair of status that looked like them and this made the identity of the last assailant known as a white hot rage made itself known to me.

 

Grey Gargoyle. A former scientist turned mutate with delusions of being one of Thor's enemies with the power to turn anything he touched into stone.

 

"You dare!" I yelled as I let Amadeus and father down before accelerating and slamming my palm on the stone man's face, right before using new leverage to slam him down with a burst of Old Power before he could try to grab me.

 

"Kala!" I heard Korg shout my name, but I was far too busy glaring at the remaining four and preparing to rip them apart. But before I could do so, the skies turned dark and...

 

*BOOM*

 

...four bolts of lightning fell down on the Wrecking Crew, almost as if the heavens themselves had decided to smite them down for their actions. And considering the voice from above me...

 

"Get up! Get up you foul villains so that the son of Odin might smite thee again!"

 

...I wasn't that far off from mark.

Chapter 44: Chapter 44

Thor Odinson, the prince of Asgard and the God of Thunder.

 

The only one who could challenge Hulk on his claim as the strongest Avenger.

 

The only one with a consistent record of victory against him with his own power.

 

Not through trickery.

 

Not through ganging up with bunch of others.

 

Not through gadgets made specifically for weakening him.

 

Not through deals made with extradimensional demons.

 

Only through his own strength and hammer, with only those he faced the Beast of Gamma and emerged victorious. That was who the God of Thunder was.

 

And now Bruce was standing before him without the power of Hulk. It made him… anxious, even while knowing that they were not enemies.

 

"So you all are following the trail of this… Red Hulk?" The god of Thunder asked with a tilt of his head. "Truly the world has changed much in my absence. Former comrades turning on each other, villains occupying our spots as Avengers and now more Hulks? If I did not know better I would say that one of you were my brother in disguise, attempting to trick me. If I did not have proof before my very eyes." He said as he looked at Skaar, who had his arms crossed and glaring at the Asgardian.

 

"Hah, it certainly does sound like it when said out loud." Hercules said with a laugh before frowning. "But there is something I don't understand my friend. Why are you here? Last I heard was that Asgard has resurfaced on Midgard along with its inhabitants. I thought that you would be helping them get accustomed to Earth, if not leading them."

 

Bruce had to admit, that Hercules' question had merit. He had heard about the land of the gods somehow appearing near Broxton but he admittedly had more pressing concerns at the time.

 

"I did try to help my brethern after rebuilding the capital city of Asgard and bringing them back. But unfortunately, I can no longer do so." The god of Thunder said with a downcast look. "I have comitted a grand crime and have been banished from Asgard. My brother Balder rules the city now."

 

…

 

…

 

…

 

…what?

 

"Thor, my friend, my ears must be playing tricks on me cause I could swear that you just said that you were banished from Asgard." Hercules said with a smile but even the blind could see how fake it was.

 

"Your ears are fine my friend. I am banished from my home."

 

"Why?" It took a moment before Bruce realized that he was the one who questioned Thor. "You are the greatest hero of Asgard and even if I don't know much about the affairs of your lands, I doubt that there was anyone who bled for your home as much as you did. What kind of crime could have warranted such a punishment?"

 

"I have murdered my grandfather." Oh.

 

Ok that might be somewhat be considered bad enough. Though going by his snort, Hercules did not seem to think so.

 

"Hah, that's nothing. Patricide is practically a trademark in my family."

 

"With all due respect my friend, I would like to think my family's situation is not as bad as yours. Even with Loki." Thor deadpanned before sighing. "And it's not as simple as a case of patricide. My grandfather Bor never abdicated the throne of Asgard before his disappearance. I might not have known that it was him when I ended up killing him, but he was still the rightful king of Asgard. There are consequences to things like that."

 

"A disappeared king just appeared right at the moment where you would clash with him?" Kala asked with a raised eyebrow. "That sounds far too unlikely to be coincidence. You sure that you weren't set up by someone who wanted you out of Asgard for their plans? No disrespect but that sounds like what this Loki character would pull, brother or not."

 

"Firstly, Loki is currently my sister." What? "And I am aware how true your words are young Kala, even if I don't want to imagine my sister orchestrating the death of a king of Asgard." Thor said with a sigh but Bruce was still trying process the whole Loki being his sister currently?

 

"If it truly is so, I will be ready to deal with my sister. But right now, I will be dealing with problems outside of Asgard." Thor said with a steely gaze. "Which is why I am here, I have been tracking some old enemies. Though I was surprised to see Grey Gargoyle defeated before I even came here, and their enemies." He said with a frown as he shot a look at Korg.

 

"The past is past Thunderer. I am happy for your aid in our time of need." The Kronan said as he gave a small bow before turning back to his petrified comrades. "Are you truly sure that the powers of this Gargoyle are only temporary?"

 

"Aye, it should take no longer than an hour more before your friends are returned to their original states." Thor nodded before turning to Bruce. "Friend Banner, may I speak with you alone for a moment."

 

Bruce was not sure why Thor would want to talk to him without others but he nodded and followed after the god of Thunder as they made some space between them and the rest of the group.

 

"Is this about Wreckers or some other foe? Cause if so, it would be better for you to talk with others."

 

"Nay, it's about things that happened while I was gone from Midgard. Though it would have been better if you still had access to Hulk for this conversation." He said before he did something that I could not comprehend for a moment after turning to me.

 

Thor, the god of Thunder and the most powerful Avenger, was bowing to him.

 

"Friend Banner, and friend Hulk who must be listening from within you, I am sorry."

Chapter 45: Chapter 45

"I'm sorry?"

 

"No, friend Banner, it is I who is sorry." Thor said with a frown.

 

"No! I mean, why are you sorry? You haven't done anything wrong."

 

"No friend Banner, I have. To you and to friend Hulk both." The god of Thunder said with a sigh. "I may not have been the one to betray you or been one of the many one who tried to stop you when you tried to take revenge, but my actions have contributed to these things."

 

"When our team first came together, it was because my brother Loki had framed friend Hulk of a crime he did not commit. An act that many of our adversaries used in order to drive a wedge between us, an act that I have fallen for far too many times." The banished prince of Asgard said while looking down. "Space Phantom was simply the first time, and I attacked friend Hulk with little to no thought. If I had showed just a little faith in you and friend Hulk throughout the years instead of just attacking and never thinking… mayhaps we would have been living in a far too different world right now." The god of thunder finished his words with a bow and Bruce found himself with no idea on how to proceed.

 

Apologies were an old friend to him with every time his so called friends being tricked into believing that Hulk had gone on a rampage and just attacking before whoever framed him got out of the shadows and started bragging about 'driving the wedge between the Avengers' as if dozens of others had not already done what they did.

 

But all those apologies had been... empty. No actual remorse in their eyes and far too ready to defend their actions with how he had to understand. And he simply never did think too much about those times since he himself had believed that he was a ticking time bomb, a monster ready to come out of it's slumber.

 

Yet he was wrong, just too absorbed in his own misery to accept that fact.

 

Hulk had not been a monster. At the very beginning, the Green Goliath had been little more than a child with far too much power; unable to understand why the people hated him or why they wouldn't leave him alone. Yet also so caring of the innocent, be they small animals or children.

 

Ah, how long had it been?

 

Since the last time he thought about that little Arab boy, who died for nothing.

 

The thought made him clench his fists as he tried to calm himself, to keep his composure before the god of thunder. Who had given him, and Hulk, what might be the first true apology for what had happened to him without the consequences his actions having gotten to him first.

 

"Thor..." He started before stopping, unsure of what he really wanted to say for a moment. "I won't say that everything is okay but... but I don't think that you are the one who needs to apologize." He said as the god of thunder raised his head and looked into his eyes. "But, thank you."

 

---

 

"So, you guys had your heart to heart?" Amadeus asked with a grin that I wiped off of his face by smacking him behind the head. Glaring down at the smol Asian boy glaring up at me.

 

Little shit. He was lucky that I hadn't put any power behind that blow. It was obvious that whatever my father and Thor had talked about had taken a weight off of his shoulders and if Amadeus ruined this for him, whoever the eight smartest person alive was would get an automatic rank up in the list.

 

"Calm down Kala." Father said with a chuckle while rubbing the back of his head. "We did have a 'heart to heart' after all."

 

"Indeed." Thor agreed with a nod. "But we can talk about such things later, friend Banner. Now, I would like to meet your sons!" He declared with a huge smile and walked up to us.

 

"Kala and Skaar Brucesons, it is a pleasure to meet you." He said with a smile as he offered a hand for a shake, which I took. And Skaar glared but that was basically his ordinary face while Hulked out so it was probably fine.

 

"When the time comes, I would like to have long talks with you both and hope to see you in an Asgardean feast. But unfortunately, we do not have time for such niceties." The god of thunder declared before looking at Korg. "Pick up your petrified comrades, there is much to do and ver little time."

 

"Great, any chance you'll explain what is this 'much to do' you talk about?" Amadeus asked with a raised eyebrow, a slight amount of sarcasm in his voice.

 

"Aye, Midgard is in danger. My enemies who perished in Ragnarok have returned to mortal coil much like my Asgardean brethren." Thor declared as he raised his hand and summoned his hammer. "Ulik and his rock trolls have been seen on your world. I would see them returned to their former realms before they can hurt anyone."

 

"That doesn't sound like something you would need help with my friend." Hercules said with a frown and I mentally agreed with him.

 

Sure, Ulik was supposedly strong enough to brawl with Thor but among the enemies of the god of thunder, he was one of the dumber ones. Not something that Thor would need help with.

 

"It isn't the trolls that trouble me Hercules. It's whoever brought them to Midgard without anyone noticing."

Notes:

CYOA Build:

World: Marvel
Budget 1000

You as Hiro Kala (Possess) of T8 -200 [800]

Talents
Body Tune-Up -5 [795]
Everlasting -10 [785]
Martial -10 [775]
Wild -5 [770]
Science -20 [750]
Engineering -30 [720]
Soul -10 [710]
Land -30 [680]
Psychic -20 [660]
Template Stacking I x3 [You as Hiro Kala has Nathaniel Grey / X-Man (Marvel), Strange Supreme (Marvel), Enkidu (Nasuverse)] -140 [520]
Performance -10 [510]

Defenses
Body x2 -10 [500]
Wild x2 -10 [490]
Environmental x2 -50 [440]
Stress -5 [435]
Mind x2 -50 [385]
Possession x2 -20 [365]
Soul -25 [340]
Fatality x2 -100 [240]
Polymorph -50 [190]
Destiny x2 -100 [90]
Paradox x2 -100 [-10]
Defenses discounted for retinue members +12 [2]

Misc Perks
Sexual Calibration -2 [0]