[A/N]: Alright guys, I'm trying something new! Instead of chasing a specific rank, bonus chapters will now drop based on the total power stones we collect. So for our first bonus chapter of the week, let's hit a target of 100 power stones. Let's see if we can make it happen!
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Mid-November brought crisp air to Manhattan. District X stood as a testament to impossible things becoming real, its skeletal infrastructure rising from what had been condemned housing projects. The outer construction zones buzzed with activity, but the heart of the district, the completed community center and residential blocks, hummed with cautious hope.
Inside the community center's main hall, Morlocks gathered in numbers that would've been unthinkable months ago. Masque's careful work showed in the crowd. Gone were the most extreme mutations. Scales smoothed to freckles. Extra limbs refined to elegant proportions. They still looked different, unmistakably other, but approachable.
Callisto stood near the stage, her white hair pulled back, eyepatch polished. She'd kept her scarred appearance, refusing Masque's offer. "Someone needs to remember what we survived," she'd said.
Caliban fidgeted beside her. Beautiful Dreamer floated calming influences through the assembly, easing the jitters of Morlocks unused to cameras and attention.
Outside, barriers held back press crews from every major network. Secret Service agents dotted the perimeter in obvious positions. SHIELD operatives worked less conspicuously, blending with NYPD uniforms. Phil Coulson stood near the ribbon-cutting platform, scanner disguised as a tablet, monitoring everything.
Vice President Rodriguez arrived in the presidential motorcade, an honor usually reserved for foreign dignitaries or state funerals. His wife Mariana walked beside him, Diego and Carlos flanking their parents. And between them, holding Hamilton's leash with fierce concentration, walked Jenna Rodriguez.
The press went wild.
Cameras flashed like lightning. Questions shouted over each other created a wall of noise. Rodriguez raised a hand, and the chaos settled.
"Three months ago, my daughter couldn't walk. Today, she runs." His voice carried across the plaza. "If miracles can happen for my family, they can happen for anyone. That's what District X represents. Not charity. Not containment. Opportunity."
Jenna waved at the cameras. Hamilton barked, tail wagging furiously.
Inside the community center, Leech pressed his face against the window. "Is that really the Vice President's kid? She looks normal."
"She is normal, little man," Masque said quietly. "That's the whole damn point."
The ribbon stretched across the community center's entrance, bright red against grey concrete. Rodriguez pulled out ceremonial scissors, Jenna holding the other handle. Flash bulbs popped like fireworks.
The explosion came without warning.
The northeast barrier disintegrated in a ball of fire and shrapnel. Screams erupted. Secret Service threw themselves at Rodriguez. SHIELD agents drew weapons. The press scattered.
Armored vehicles roared through the smoking gap, eight in total. Four bore crude spray-painted crosses, the others marked with a stylized "U" that dripped like blood.
Friends of Humanity militants poured from the first wave, body armor and assault rifles standard issue for domestic terrorists. They moved with military precision, establishing firing positions, advancing in coordinated squads.
The U-Men came behind them, and they were something else entirely. Surgical whites stained with old blood. Faces hidden behind featureless masks. They carried syringes the size of turkey basters and bone saws that hummed with power.
"VERMIN BACK IN THE SEWERS!" The lead FOH militant's voice carried through a bullhorn. "MANHATTAN FOR HUMANS!"
"MUTANT ORGANS FOR SCIENCE!" A U-Man's modulated voice sent chills down spines. "EVOLUTION WILL BE HARVESTED!"
Callisto's roar cut through the chaos. "GET THE CHILDREN INSIDE! MASQUE, FULL LOCKDOWN! CALIBAN, FIND EVERY CIVILIAN AND GET THEM TO THE SHELTERS!"
Morlocks who'd been enjoying their first public celebration scattered. Those with combat experience moved to defensive positions. The rest herded civilians toward reinforced safe rooms.
Beautiful Dreamer stood in the center of the plaza, arms spread wide, and thirty militants simply stopped. Their eyes glazed. Rifles lowered. In their minds, they stood in peaceful meadows.
But there were too many. A U-Man jabbed her from behind with a taser. She dropped, convulsing. The spell broke. The militants shook off confusion and advanced.
Leech darted from the building, panic overriding training. Three FOH soldiers swung rifles toward the child.
Steel rang against concrete.
A shield, star-spangled and unmistakable, struck all three men in rapid succession. The boomerang path was physics-defying, each ricochet calculated perfectly. It returned to a gloved hand emerging from the crowd.
But the hand didn't belong to anyone the world recognized.
The man stepped into the light. Tactical suit, no cape, helmet obscuring his features. He caught the shield and moved with fluid grace.
"Impossible," an FOH militant breathed. "Captain America's dead. Frozen. Gone."
"You're just some asshole in a costume!" Another raised his rifle.
The 'costume' blurred. Shield met rifle barrel, bent it ninety degrees. An elbow to the face. Leg sweep. Both men down in under two seconds.
More militants converged. The stranger fought like violence was a language he'd been speaking since birth. Shield work that turned incoming fire into ricochets. Hand-to-hand that left men unconscious before they realized they'd been hit.
A U-Man lunged with a bone saw. The shield caught it, trapped it, twisted. The saw shattered. A boot to the chest sent the harvester flying.
"WHO ARE YOU?" The FOH commander screamed, mag-dumping his rifle.
The stranger's shield caught every round. When the magazine clicked empty, he stood there, untouched, and pulled off his helmet.
Blond hair. Square jaw. Blue eyes that had seen the world burn and chosen to keep fighting anyway.
Steve Rogers looked exactly like the photos in history textbooks, the statues in memorial parks, the man who'd supposedly died seventy years ago.
The press went absolutely insane.
Every camera swung toward him. News helicopters zoomed lenses. In homes across America, people stopped mid-dinner, coffee cups suspended, mouths hanging open.
"Holy Mary Mother of God," a CNN reporter whispered into her microphone. "That's... that's actually him."
Steve Rogers' voice carried across the plaza, amplified by every camera, every microphone, reaching millions.
"I've been called a lot of things. Symbol. Hero. Propaganda tool. But I'm just a man who believes in something simple." He surveyed the militants, the weapons, the hatred. "Freedom isn't just for people who look like you. Liberty isn't conditional on genetics. These people," he gestured to the Morlocks emerging from cover, "they're Americans. They deserve the same rights I fought for."
The FOH commander's face twisted. "The real Captain America wouldn't defend freaks! He stood for American values! Purity! Strength!"
Steve's expression hardened. "Son, I fought Nazis who said exactly the same thing. Wore different uniforms, spoke a different language, but the hatred?" He shook his head. "That sounds real familiar."
"You're a fake! An imposter!"
"Maybe I am." Steve raised his shield. "Doesn't change what's right."
The commander signaled. Forty militants opened fire simultaneously.
Steve moved.
The shield became a blur of red, white, and blue. Bullets sparked off it in showers of orange. He advanced through the storm, each step calculated, using cover, civilian vehicles, anything to get closer.
A militant with a rocket launcher took aim at the community center. Steve threw his shield. It struck the launcher at the perfect angle, sent it skyward. The rocket detonated harmlessly in the air. The shield ricocheted off a lamppost, a fire hydrant, and returned to Steve's hand.
But there were too many. For every militant he dropped, two more took firing positions.
Then the sky lit up with flame.
Johnny Storm descended like a comet, arms spread wide, grinning. "FLAME ON!"
He didn't just throw fire. He conducted it. Walls of flame cut off militant retreat routes. Precision strikes melted weapons without touching the wielders. He pulled heat from the air itself, creating zones where rifles froze too cold to fire.
"Sorry we're late! Traffic was murder!"
The Fantasticar hit the ground behind him, repulsor engines screaming. Ben Grimm, looking startlingly human in khakis and a flannel shirt, full beard making him look like a Brooklyn construction worker, leaped from the vehicle mid-flight.
Halfway down, his body shifted. Orange stone erupted across his skin. Mass increased exponentially. When he landed, the street cracked in a fifteen-foot radius.
"IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!"
Ben waded into the U-Men's ranks like a wrecking ball. Bone saws shattered against his rocky hide. Tasers did nothing. He grabbed two harvesters and knocked them together like coconuts.
"Youse wanna harvest somethin'? How about I harvest yer TEETH?"
A U-Man jabbed him with a syringe large enough to tranquilize an elephant. Ben looked down at the needle, bent against his stone arm, and grinned.
"That's gonna cost ya." He picked up the harvester and threw him into a nearby FOH vehicle hard enough to leave a man-shaped dent.
Sue Storm materialized out of nowhere, force fields blooming like flowers. One caught a grenade mid-flight, contained the explosion to a harmless sphere. Another wrapped around a group of civilians, bullets sparking harmlessly off invisible walls.
"Ben, your six!" She projected a force field ramp. An FOH militant trying to flank found himself sliding backwards on frictionless energy.
Reed Richards stretched from the Fantasticar's driver seat, elastic arms extending impossibly far. He disarmed militants from fifty feet away, plucking weapons from hands like flowers. His body twisted through gunfire, bullets passing through gaps he created in his own torso.
"The metallurgical composition of their armor is fascinating! Clearly derivative of Stark Industries' early prototypes, but the application of the..."
"REED!" Sue shouted. "Fight now, science later!"
"Right, yes, sorry dear!"
Storm clouds gathered overhead with impossible speed. Lightning flickered. Wind howled.
Ororo Munroe descended on controlled air currents, white hair streaming, eyes glowing pure white. Thunder rolled across Manhattan.
"This ends. Now."
Lightning struck with surgical precision. Not to kill, but to disable. FOH vehicles' electrical systems fried. Communications went dead. A militant aiming at Steve found his rifle turned to slag in his hands, the bolt jumping harmlessly into the ground beside him.
Behind her came the X-Men.
Jean Grey levitated a dozen militants simultaneously, their weapons floating away to clatter harmlessly on the ground. Her eyes glowed. "Stay down. I'd really prefer not to scramble anyone's brain today."
Colossus landed like a meteor, steel skin gleaming. A U-Man's bone saw struck his chest and shattered. Piotr grabbed the harvester gently, almost apologetically, and deposited him in a growing pile of unconscious enemies.
"In Russia, we have saying. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes."
Wolverine hit the ground in a crouch, claws already extended. His grin was absolutely feral. "Been too long since I had a good fight."
He moved like a blender on legs. Slashing through body armor, vehicle tires, weapon straps. He didn't kill, Callisto had been explicit about that, but the message was clear. These claws could've gone through flesh as easily as Kevlar.
"Logan, left flank!" Cyclops' voice carried tactical precision.
Scott Summers' optic blast carved a line across the pavement between militants and civilians. The message was clear: cross this line and things get serious.
"Stand down! You're outnumbered and outmatched!"
"By FREAKS?" An FOH commander screamed. "WE'LL NEVER..."
Cyclops' optic blast vaporized the man's rifle, the asphalt beneath his feet, and the will to fight in everyone nearby.
"I said stand down."
The battle turned into a rout.
Johnny herded militants with fire walls, giggling the entire time. "Come on, guys! At least make it interesting!"
Ben grabbed an armored vehicle and flipped it onto its side, blocking an escape route. "Where ya goin'? Party's just gettin' started!"
Storm created a localized tornado that lifted U-Men vehicles and deposited them gently, if firmly, into a pile.
Jean simply held thirty people in the air, their struggles futile.
Steve Rogers worked through the chaos with brutal efficiency. Shield strikes. Pressure points. Joint locks that left militants screaming. He fought the way a master craftsman worked, every move perfect, nothing wasted.
A U-Man lunged at Leech with a syringe. Steve's shield took the harvester's legs out. A spinning kick to the head. The U-Man dropped.
Steve scooped up Leech without breaking stride. "You okay, son?"
Leech nodded, wide-eyed. "You're really him. You're really Captain America."
"Yeah, kid. I really am."
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