Chương 213: Chapter 213
The news cycle the morning after the battle was surprisingly negative—and for understandable, if painful, reasons.
J. Jonah Jason's mustache quivered as he spoke to a respected political mutant activist on Fox News. Beside him sat a geneticist, a politician, and two other dia talking heads.
"You say he saved New York from an invasion—but an invasion from who? You've seen the news out of Seattle. Storm and Jean Grey were there, on opposite sides, and a NASA satellite captured stills from this Dante's fight in space with Storm. It's the stuff of nightmares."
"Every society has their bad eggs," the activist, Chandra, said, adjusting her glasses. "People like Storm are outliers."
"Is she, though?" Jonah pressed. "The good doctor here has been fortunate enough to acquire DNA samples from one of the many fights Dante and his globe-trotting team engaged in. And the 'demons' they were fighting had a near-identical DNA sequence to humans."
The news hit like a whip to the back, and the panel reacted differently. Chandra went still, while both comntators went pale.
"You can't be suggesting that they're mutants?" the female comntator, Jeanine, asked.
"Certainly makes more sense than biblical demons," Jonah huffed. "They looked similar enough to the muties with physical adaptations. And everybody knows the X-n don't exactly bend over backwards to save the less photogenic mbers of their kind."
"That's a bold accusation," Chandra snapped, fire in her voice. "And entirely untrue. Dr. Hank and Scott Sumrs are both prominent mbers with considerable physical adaptations. And let's not get into the children they've taken in. To even entertain the idea that a group of disgruntled mutants started a worldwide invasion because the X-n weren't accommodating enough? I didn't realize you were prejudiced against mutants, Jonah. I mistook you for a reputable journalist."
"I'm sure the X-n are not the only ones on the radical mutants' hit list," Jonah said confidently. "In their mind, they have good reason to go after nations with strong mutant laws. Brazil. Japan. The United States. Even Nepal. Tell that's just a coincidence?"
Chandra blinked, montarily taken aback. Even I had to admit Jason made a good point. If I hadn't been in the middle of the shitstorm myself, I might have entertained his theory.
Jason continued, a growing smirk on his face.
"That look on your face is exactly why I don't like vigilantes, mutants or not. No accountability. No communication. No oversight. The sky could fall tomorrow, and they'll tell us nothing about how it happened or why. But at least with the good Doctor here, we have so answers."
He gestured to the geneticist beside him. Dr. Erik Gilmore was a portly, balding man who sat awkwardly on the studio chair and jumped when the cara zood in on him.
"Uh… well… yes. While I don't agree with the conclusion Mr. Jason has drawn, we've received genetic evidence that proves there is a human connection. Although there's still a significant portion of their DNA sequence we can't read yet."
Jason frowned at the correction, gears clearly shifting in his mind. He was about to try another angle, press the geneticist into siding with him, but Chandra cut in first.
"Did you even find an X-Gene," she pressed, "or is all this just speculation?"
Gilmore frowned, clearly not appreciating the implications.
"We found an X-gene, though the tissue sample we received clearly didn't co from a Homo sapien."
Jason's mustache twitched in surprise.
"I'm sorry, Doctor, what did you just say?" the second dia head, Mike, gawked, and the Senator looked alard.
Gilmore plowed on, oblivious of the implications he was making.
"The prevailing theory is that the sample cos from a heavily modified human or a hybrid of so sort," Gilmore explained.
"A hybrid of what?" Mike asked.
"Demons perhaps? A foreign genus certainly explains the unreadable half of the DNA sequence. The scrambled sequence could also be a result of directed physiological and biological alterations."
"You're saying sobody might've warped these terrorists so bad they stopped being human?" Jason hooked onto that.
"Possibly," Gilmore said diplomatically.
"How credible is the demon theory?" Jeanine asked, drawing his attention. "Could we really be dealing with another race of humans?"
"Species," Gilmore corrected, "connected to the larger human Genus, yes. Possibly."
Jason harrumphed and folded his arms. "Sounds to like a whole bunch of smoke. You were right on the money with your first theory, Doc. Certainly more credible than alien demons nobody has ever seen before. It's not outside the wheelhouse of what we've seen the strongest mutants pull off, either. Xavier Charles can find people across the world, Magneto can control tal, Storm can control the weather, and Dante is apparently the second coming of Jesus Christ. Only a mutant would be powerful enough to pull this off."
"And what about the unidentified sequences?" Chandra demanded. "You heard the Doctor. There are too many unanswered questions."
"In my line of work, the simplest explanation is typically the right one," Jason shrugged. "Wasn't that crazy girl, Domina, and her sister, Isha, responsible for the first attack on New York and Culver University? They're both human."
Chandra opened her mouth to rebut, but the grey-haired senator who'd been sitting quietly the entire ti finally spoke.
"Sorry to cut you off, Chandra, but I gotta get sothing off my chest." He looked straight at the cara. "Dante, and the brave n and won who helped save New York—if you're watching this, I want to personally say thank you. I feel like you haven't heard that enough, considering what you managed to accomplish yesterday. The city might not still be standing if it weren't for you. I think that's sothing we can all agree on."
Jason's lips pressed into a tight line, but everybody else nodded, Chandra especially.
"Chandra is right when she said we're all terrified and jumping to conclusions when we don't have all the facts, but Jason isn't wrong either. Dozens died in the fight in Brazil, you sank a historical monunt, and the Japanese want to know why you brought down a tower in the middle of Tokyo. The public needs answers, evidence—anything to put the country, and the world at large, at ease. Tell your story before sobody else tells it for you."
I blinked. That was solid advice from the last person I expected it from. He was a Republican senator—Crawley, I believe.
"Poignant words, Senator," Mike nodded appreciatively.
"I couldn't have said it better myself," Jeanine added.
"You're a better man than , Senator," Jason shook his head, "but I think you're wasting your ti. Just like Spider-Man and the other costud freaks running around New York, I don't think Dante is about to grace Fox or any other serious dia platform with his presence. He has too much to hide."
"Textbook Jason answer," Chandra said. "He'll be out of business the day a superhero takes him up on his offer."
I shut off the television before Jason could rebut as Rin walked in, phone in hand.
"Dude. You're totally getting roasted on social dia."
"It's about the sa on regular dia," I said, taking a sip of my morning coffee. Not that I considered Fox a stellar bastion of journalism—the biases were clear if you paid even a modicum of attention—but you could say the sa about the very liberal networks.
The rest of the team and I had resettled at the mansion in Alaska and were working toward a new normal, but I knew it was a long way off. Not after everything.
"What will you do?" Rin asked.
"Can't say I'm not tempted to give an interview," I admitted, "but I'll talk to Fury first. We've got a potential deal in the works. Wouldn't want to risk it by stepping on his toes."
"And why does that matter again?" Rin pressed. "If anything, it should be the other way around. This is what…the third ti we've saved the world?" 1
"Second," I corrected. "The thing at Culver University doesn't count. For once, Fury and I aren't seconds away from tearing each other's throats out. He hasn't given shit about the Tesseract, even though he must be suspicious, and I've pushed him plenty in the past. Small concessions here and there hardly matter in the long term."
Rin's lips twisted, his brows knitting together. "If you say so, boss."
"Have I led you wrong yet?"
"No," he admitted, though hesitantly. I didn't need to read his mind to know what was on it.
"You're worried about Lauren and everything else."
He nodded quickly. "Apparently, Kamar-Taj is having a crisis of leadership. Yao didn't leave explicit instructions on how to choose a successor." 1
I could see how that might be concerning, but I wasn't worried. "They have dozens of masters and enhanced between them. Let them sort it out."
"And what about Lauren?" he pressed.
I settled back in my chair with a sigh. "That plan hinges on multiversal travel. There's one universe in particular that has just about everything we need to stomp Lauren, no matter what she cos up with. And I plan to head there as soon as I find the Soul Stone and go through the notes my mother Eva left us."
It was going to take a long ti to figure out how to create my own liquid tal soldiers, but thanks to the Space and Ti Stones, I had all the ti I needed.
"So, now that I've put your mind at ease, how about breakfast?" I humd. "I'm thinking pancakes, bacon, syrup, and so OJ."
"I've still got questions," Rin said, "but I could do with so breakfast."
"Attaboy." I clapped his shoulder. "I read about this great place in Vermont with the best pancakes. We could portal there and back in a jiff."
"Really… just like that?"
"What's the point of power if you're not going to use it?" I shrugged. 2
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