Marvel: The Awakened One

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Hawk looked up at the sky.

He could feel someone watching him.

William Stryker. Hawk knew that name. Colonel Stryker was the one behind so much mutant suffering. It figured. Sentinel Services had just sent a kill squad into the sewers, so the boss would be watching the feed.

"Hawk." Wanda's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

With two mutant guards at her side, she rushed up the stairs and stopped in front of him. She glanced at his bare chest, streaked with Sentinel blood.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

The two mutant guards looked past him at the destruction on the street. Mangled bodies, broken armor, and blood seeping through the cracks in the asphalt. One guard swallowed, his mouth open in shock.

A moment later, Mark, the underground manager, limped up the stairs while leaning on another guard. Pale and shaking, he scanned the sea of corpses before looking at Hawk.

"Thank you."

He should have died. The shrapnel wound was fatal, but Hawk's rampage destroyed the armored transports with the X-Gene suppressors.

When the suppressors failed, Mark's weak healing ability pulled him back from the edge.

It was nothing like Wolverine's healing. If you shot Logan in the head, he'd wake up hours later with a headache and a bad mood. Mark's power was much weaker, more like a slow crawl than real immortality.

Still, it saved his life.

Hawk acknowledged the thanks with a glance. "I figured making this much noise might draw Professor X out."

Mark gave him a weak, bitter smile. "Professor X doesn't care whether ordinary mutants live or die."

"Fair enough." Hawk shrugged.

Tires screeched.

Two plain vans screeched to a stop on the street. The doors slid open, and the guards shouted for the surviving mutants to get in. The safehouse was gone. They had to leave fast. Sentinel reinforcements were likely coming, and every second counted.

Leaning on his guard, Mark looked back at Hawk. "Mr. Phoenix, let's go. More Sentinels are coming."

"Thanks." A faint smile touched Hawk's lips. "But I'll pass."

Mark met his eyes for a moment and understood. He didn't argue.

"Take care. We pray you and your wife find your daughter."

"Thanks."

"Goodbye, Mr. Phoenix."

"Goodbye, Mark."

Mark got into the van. The doors slammed, and both vehicles sped off, carrying the last twenty survivors of the New York mutant underground.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

Late to the party, as usual.

NYPD.

"What's next?" Wanda listened to the approaching sirens and looked at Hawk.

"Next…" Hawk looked back up at the sky. "Do you think Sentinel Services has a satellite pointed right at us?"

Wanda arched an eyebrow. "Probably."

"So they know exactly who we are now."

"High probability."

Wanda looked up too. After a moment, she said, "I can sense the metal. There is a satellite locked onto our coordinates."

"Is that right?" Hawk's smirk grew. He turned to face her. "Do you know when the federal government back home finally learned to fear me?"

Wanda blinked. "Fear? I thought they respected you."

Hawk laughed. "I tried respect once."

"And??"

"They mistook it for weakness and kept testing my boundaries..." His voice became flat. "After that, I figured it out. I don't need their respect. I just need their fear."

Respect is a choice. Fear is instinct. A tiger doesn't need to roar, just to stand there. Every smaller animal that smells it will freeze, shake, and hope the predator moves on.

That was Hawk's approach back in Universe-616. He didn't care about being accepted. He wanted deterrence. Destroying bloodlines, wiping out factions, and trading violence for the fear of world powers worked better than any deal.

"So," Hawk said, smiling at Wanda, "how much blood do you think it will take to teach this government the same lesson?"

Wanda caught the edge in his grin and arched an eyebrow. "I thought the plan was to keep a low profile."

"It was."

"But?"

"But I'd rather stop problems before they start." Hawk looked straight up at the invisible satellite. "Cops need proof. I don't. Sentinel Services could become a problem. That's enough reason to take them out."

Police cruisers screamed to a halt at the end of the block. Doors flew open, and NYPD officers spilled onto the street, weapons raised toward the blood-soaked man and the woman standing casually beside him.

"Freeze!"

"Hands in the air! Now!"

The officers yelled over the loud sirens.

Hawk just smirked. He put his arm around Wanda's waist and lifted off the ground right in front of the police.

A moment later, a vapor cone exploded outward.

The sonic boom slammed into the street like a bomb. A shockwave ripped through the block, shattering windows and tossing officers back. They screamed and shut their eyes against the flying glass and debris.

When they opened their eyes again, the street was empty.

Hawk and Wanda were gone.

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"Where did he go?"

"Do we still have a lock?"

"Shit, he's moving too fast."

"Where are they heading?"

Inside the Sentinel Services command center, chaos spread from one station to another. The satellite still tracked Hawk as he shot through the upper atmosphere at incredible speed.

Stryker watched the moving signal. His eyes narrowed as a wave of dread hit him.

But he was a mutant hunter. He had seen powerful mutants before. He had caught them, killed them, and studied how they worked.

"Keep the lock," Stryker ordered. "The second they land, deploy the Strategic Support Unit. Tell them I want this one alive."

"Yes, sir."

The technician rushed to his console while Stryker stared at the blip on the screen.

[Where are you going?] Wanda asked telepathically.

With his cosmic energy blocked, Hawk had to rely on pure speed. He turned south, holding Wanda close as the world blurred below them.

[Quantico.]

[This is still Earth,] Hawk replied in her mind. [The rules are the same. If someone pisses me off, I hit the military.]

It was a system that worked. Back home, Hawk kept deterrence through fear, but let the military handle the aftermath. If a rogue agency crossed him, he hit the armed forces. If the Pentagon wanted him to stop, they had to deal with whoever started it.

Someone provoked Hawk.

Hawk bombed the Pentagon.

The Pentagon massacred the idiots who provoked Hawk.

A perfect, self-sustaining loop.

Logically, he should have gone straight to the Pentagon. But back home, he only did that after making a name for himself. The generals already knew him. Proud leaders turned into nervous wrecks when he walked in, and they took out his enemies because they knew the other option was their own end.

This Earth was different.

Nobody knew his name here.

Hawk had to admit, people in this mutant-filled world were stubborn. Maybe too stubborn. Part of it was probably because Professor X always played the pacifist, protecting them from consequences. People like that wouldn't give in after just a warning.

You had to hurt them badly.

You had to push them to the brink before they understood.

Luckily, Hawk was good at that.

He would start with Quantico.

In some ways, Quantico was where he proved himself. Back in 2012, he took his first real steps toward power there. He built his strength on that ground.

It made sense to start his new campaign there too.

He crossed the state line, and Quantico came into view below.

Hawk slowed down, dropping from supersonic speed to a stop above the huge Marine Corps base. He looked down at the base, then slowly looked back up at the sky.

Inside the Sentinel command center, William Stryker watched as Hawk seemed to stare right through the satellite feed.

His heart dropped.

"NO. WARN QUANTICO!! GET THEM ON THE…"

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMM!!!"

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