Chương 268: New World, Old Me part 1.
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(General P.O.V)
Space was neatly sliced open in a perfect circle as an orange portal appeared in mid air.
From inside the portal, 3 figures emerged led by a bald headed woman dressed in yellow robes with a focused look on her face. She surveyed the scene, which was red, rocky and dusty with no apparent life around.
Her hands flashed with yellow light and the slight choking she was hearing from behind her ceased as one of her partners took in big mouthfuls of breaths.
Loki stopped wheezing and stood upright, massaging his throat while glaring at the back of the woman infront of him and Thor. A Thor that was trying his hardest to mask his laughter.
"You, Seidr...do you have any idea who I am!?"
The trickster god raged.
"Ah come of it brother. You did prank her followers back on Midgard, afterall."
Thor told him, slapping his shoulder slightly. Loki glared at him as well, shoving off the palm his brother placed on his shoulder.
"I could have suffocated!"
He said, pushing his hair off his face.
"What's wrong?" The Ancient One asked with humor laced in her tone.
"As the god of magic, a simple spell to breathe in space should be easy enough for you."
Loki's face went beet red while Thor snickered.
"By the All-father, she got you there brother. Hahaha..."
"Shut your mouth Thor."
Loki spat out, before turning his eyes to The Ancient One.
"And you. Know this, Sorcerer, I am a god. I have lived for thousands of years. I have a glorious purpose..."
Just then the whole planet was rocked by tremors. Thor and Loki both went silent, remembering that they were on Mars for a reason.
"It's starting."
Thor said, placing his palm flat on the ground. He got up and removed Mjonilr from its place on his hip. The god of Thunder's eyes started glowing blue.
With a green flourish of his divine energy, 2 daggers appeared in Loki's hands.
"This feels like the start of every battle we have ever been in Thor. The tension..."
Thor's face became hard.
"The only thing missing is the excitement."
Thor answered. Somehow he wasn't sure he would enjoy fighting whatever this was. However, a mission from his father before he went on his Odin Sleep was something he could not simply ignore.
The tremors intensified, a crack running from a raised hill a thousand meters away towards them and it wasn't the only one. The whole planet was being struck by at least a 10.0 magnitude earthquake. The ground before them was fracturing at a very fast pace.
Loki and Thor looked around and surprise colored their faces. Dust storms of red sprang up, along with hills and huge boulders breaking apart into many pieces. A dense black smoke with seemingly no visible source begun to also drift out of the cracks in the ground. The planet seemed to be on the verge of exploding.
"Maybe Father could have gone on his Odin sleep at a later date and not left us with this kind of task? I do not think we're quite cut out for this Thor."
Loki was quick to say when the smoke begun to spread out through the ground, corroding rocks and soil, infecting the red color and leaving behind a ashy landscape.
"I am no coward."
Thor ground out with confidence.
"Whoever this is, enemy or friend, I shall meet him as a warrior."
Loki eyed his brother with familiar frustration.
"Sometimes I wonder if you're brave or simply lack common sense."
The Ancient One finally made a move from where she had been standing. All traces of a joking mood evaporated. Her eyes opened and she released a small breath of air. It was time. Pulling power from invoking the Vishanti, magical circles in laid with complex shapes and patterns, covered her palms.
"Hold on to something. Preferably, each other."
Then she stomped one of her legs onto the ground, hard. A section of it, the one they were standing on, measuring about 50 feet across, rose up to the sky at her urging. Loki and Thor buckled unsteadily, the former dismissing one of his daggers to grab onto Thor's flowing red cape.
The shaking stopped as the piece of ground under them, ascended to about 500 meters off the ground and stopped. Then a lot of mystical energy washed out of the Ancient One as she spread her arms to the side, grunting in power.
Right before their eyes, grids of yellow light covered the shaking planet and then as if it was a cake, each section under the grid was cut into it's own individual piece. Like a cake at a birthday party or a fruit, perfectly sliced under a sharp knife, Mars was broken apart into tiny almost comparable in shape and size, pieces.
"Incredible." Loki muttered, looking at the Ancient One with new eyes.
"The power it would take to achieve something on this scale should not only be immense but also be of a high quality. Yet, she can control every single speck..." He shook his head.
The ancient one's left hand tightened into a fist as she chanted. Then ever slowly, each piece separated from its neighbors, like a puzzle opening to reveal what it hid underneath.
A puzzle that hid something ancient. Something terrifying. A black ball of infinite chaos energy swirling around the core of Mars.
Right before their eyes all was revealed and nothing would ever be the same again.
(X mansion)
Professor Charles Xavier looked at the helmet on the small raised platform. Cerebral.
"You're stalling Charles." His oldest friend and enemy, Magneto said. Charles sighed, looking at Eric from the corner of his vision as he stood on his left. Then he felt a gentle hand squeeze his shoulder.
Jean.
"We can all feel it Professor. Whatever this thing is, its waking up..."
She told him, face unfocused and eyes glowing with a scarlet light.
"It feels... otherworldly."
"She is right, Charles. This could be another Apocalypse situation. We cannot let that happen."
Magneto informed him.
"We need to know where it's coming from and deal with it before it gets out of hand."
"Not everything can be solved with Violence, Eric."
Xavier chided him only to receive a mocking laugh in return.
"Your pacifism would see us dead Charles. Besides, we both know that sometimes doing the ugly thing for the greater good does not make you evil...it means you're strong enough to taint your hands so that someone else will not. A noble sacrifice...that is what you have taught your X-Men, is it not?"
Xavier did not answer. That same argument was timeless. Eric and he, had said everything there was to say a long time ago.
He reached out, took the helmet of the stand and wore it on his head.
Immediately, his already prodigious mental abilities were immediately enhanced to a completely different level. He could feel every single mind on the planet. Every child, man, woman and animal. Nothing was hidden from his mind. It was...easy. Then he pushed to see past that. His awareness spread out to cover the moon, then beyond that.
He felt it.
Charles sucked in a deep breath as his eyes opened wide. His eyeballs started glowing a white color.
"Professor!"
Jean tried to shake him out of it...but Charles could not stop seeing. His mind had been exposed to something no human or mortal really should have ever seen. It changed him.
A will stronger than him. Stronger than Apocalypse. The only comparison he could make was say that it was just as strong as what he had locked away in Jean's mind.
He tried to detach himself from its tight grip and failed. He felt himself getting submerged in it...
Charles did the only thing he could, he connected with the whole collective of human consciousness. Relying on the mental webbing of 7 billion people to shoulder the weight of this 'being'. Magneto and Jean felt a mental load fall on their minds. Something heavy that caused a feeling of awe, appreciation and terror.
It spread out like a wave of light to cover the state of New York, the nation and then the rest of the continents. Every human being on the planet felt it. For a mere 2 seconds, they all experienced what Xavier saw.
"Futile..."
Xavier said, cutting off the mental projection of the entity from the rest of humanity.
Even that many minds couldn't handle it.
His body slumped on his wheelchair. Jean massaged her forehead while getting up and scrambling towards Charles.
"Professor! Professor, wake up!"
Magneto removed his helmet, throwing it away and wiping his nose to see blood.
The helmet, designed to keep out telepaths had been rendered useless by whatever that was!
"Is he okay? Charles!"
He too, walked forward in concern.
"I could feel him... asking for help...he tried...tried to rely on the rest of us..."
The entrance to cerebral opened and Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Logan and Hank ran in.
"What happened to Chuck?"
Wolverine deployed his claws, hostilely looking at Magneto.
"And what was that thing?!"
"Logan wait!"
Storm told him as Jean looked back at them with a shocked look on her face.
"The professor...his mind. I...I can't feel it anymore."
(Elsewhere)
Charles opened his eyes to a world of white. He blinked.
"Who are you?"
A tall man with long black hair asked him from behind.
"What?"
Xavier wondered, turning around to see nothing but the same whiteness that went on forever. Oh wait...there was something or rather two things that stood apart from the white. One of them was... Xavier's mind changed the subject in lieu of something more interesting. He looked down at himself and gaped. He...was standing up.
"Loki!"
Thor shouted out of nowhere. Even after walking around...he had seen nothing but white all over. Both Xavier and Loki turned to look at him.
"I swear, if this is one of your tricks I will not forgive you."
Thor warned, raising his hammer and pointing it at Loki. Xavier raised his hands.
"Gentlemen, surely we can handle this in a more amicable way. If we work together...
Loki rolled his eyes and interrupted Xavier.
"Look around you fool," he addressed Thor.
"Does this seem like something I could come up with? Really? A void of nothing but white? It lacks imagination!"
Thor frowned, considering his brother's words.
"I suppose you're right."
"If there is anything suspicious about this...it's the mortal who popped in from nowhere."
Loki pointed his dagger at Xavier.
"Where did you come from?"
He asked with narrowed eyes.
Even Thor started giving Xavier a suspicious look, walking slowly to flank the leader of the X-Men in-between Loki and him.
Xavier did not answer. Instead he had a finger on his temple, trying to break out of what he knew was a trap for his mind and the other two. They could introduce one another after they were far away from danger.
"Answer me mortal."
Loki ground out dangerously.
"Don't bother."
A new but familiar voice said from above them.
"Ancient One."
Thor said, finally noticing her along with the other two. Xavier blinked at the dagger held very close to his neck. He stepped away from Loki and looked up.
"That voice..."
Xavier muttered.
The Ancient One made no reaction yet,
"Hello Charles."
She said, not looking down. Eyes turned to the sky as if waiting.
"How do you know me and why does it feel like we've met before?"
Charles questioned, finding the whole thing more and more complicated. Her voice reminded her of the flashes and nightmares of an impending doom he would usually get at night from using Cerebral too much. His powers would seemingly be influenced by his dreams and go a little haywire. The good thing was that he hadn't hurt anyone yet.
"Cerebral..."
Xavier finally said.
"I always feel a sort of...void and your voice in the middle of that void whenever I use Cerebral to scan the world."
He murmured with a tone colored in realization.
"It's you...I can't feel you. I have never felt you."
The Ancient One smiled a little.
"That is because I am a sorcerer Professor. And I have a few tricks up my sleeve for dealing with those who try to poke their noses in my business."
Xavier opened his mouth and closed it after The Ancient One's words. He truly had no response to that.
"Is this your doing?"
Xavier asked, already knowing the answer to that question.
Loki and Thor both listened as well, waiting to hear the Ancient One's response.
"No. It's Mine."
A new voice, this one managing to sound young, old and tired all at the same time replied.
In the white featureless sky, a pair of eyes emerged. One a deep red and the other a deep green. The irises were surrounded by a ring of white and black. Loki and Thor both stumbled back.
"Yeah...maybe Father should have handled this instead."
Thor agreed with Loki's earlier statement.
(Elsewhere)
On the other side of existence, from a higher dimension, the Watcher knew fear due to four simple words.
"I can see you."
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