[A/N]: Yay, we did it 🎉 Our Second goal of 400 PowerStones is officially done, and this is your Second bonus chapter!
Now for the next target 👀 First goal: 200 PowerStones. Hit that, and I'll drop TWO bonus chapters.
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Jay sighed while his shoulders sagged with exhaustion that went bone-deep. "Don't worry about it, Eric. I've..."
The communication cut off mid-sentence as if something catastrophic happening on the other end that simply erased the connection.
For one heartbeat, the Helicarrier deck was completely still, everyone frozen in that terrible moment of anticipation where you know something awful is about to happen but can't yet see it.
Then the entire northern horizon ignited like someone had set the sky on fire.
The explosion erupted from deep in the Atlantic Ocean as a pillar of light and heat that climbed toward the heavens. The blast cloud formed a mushroom shape that dwarfed anything Earth had seen since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, expanding outward in concentric rings that turned water to steam and air to plasma. The Helicarrier rocked violently from the shockwave despite being miles away, throwing people to the deck while alarms shrieked warnings about radiation spikes and structural damage. The sky itself seemed to split with energy discharge that painted everything in shades of orange and white.
"No," Steve breathed while his face drained of all color, hands gripping the railing hard enough to bend metal. "Please tell me that's not..."
"A nuclear detonation," Hill finished while her voice came out hollow and her tablet went crazy with radiation readings and seismic data. "That's multiple megatons at minimum. That Cabal's submarine Xavier had flagged? That was at the epicenter."
Jay's expression remained carefully neutral, but something flickered behind his eyes. "Tch."
Domino caught that look. "Jay, what are you hiding? That face says you know something we don't, and I really need you to share with the rest of us right now."
Jay scratched his cheek while his gaze wouldn't quite meet hers. "Well, I knew Sinister's playbook inside and out from studying his research. It was only a matter of time before he tried to get his hands on Nathan or Franklin's genetic material for cloning experiments." His voice dropped and became quieter. "So when I delivered both of them, when I had access to their DNA during the birth process, I installed a genetic failsafe. Very simple code and very easy to hide. If anyone ever cloned them and tried to activate the clone, the genome would destabilize catastrophically."
He gestured at the mushroom cloud still rising on the horizon. "But I didn't account for those idiots combining both kids' genetic material into a single organism. Nathan's omega-level telekinetic potential plus Franklin's reality-warping capabilities, all compressed into one body with my failsafe triggering in both genetic sequences simultaneously."
Silence fell across the deck like a physical weight, broken only by the distant rumble of the explosion's aftermath rolling across the ocean.
When he turned, he saw the rest of them staring at him wide-eyed as if saying 'Really?'
Jay's face tightened. "What? They're both babies I helped bring into this world. Franklin's my godson, for God's sake." His voice rose with each word. "Sinister's been cloning mutants for decades, creating armies of disposable soldiers, experimenting on children like they're lab rats. What was I supposed to do, just hope he wouldn't try? Just trust that someone who's murdered thousands wouldn't go after two of the most powerful mutants ever born?"
"You could have told someone," Steve said quietly while his blue eyes carried the weight of moral certainty that had guided him through seven decades. "Could have done literally anything other than turning children into walking time bombs."
Before the argument could escalate further, Domino gasped and stumbled.
Her eyes pulsed black like ink spreading through the white sclera. At the same moment, the Death Stone in her hand ignited with violet radiance that cast dancing shadows across the deck, and her consciousness was yanked sideways into the space between life and death again.
The vision hit her, overwhelming her senses with information.
She stood at the edge between the physical and spiritual worlds, in that liminal space where the dead lingered when they couldn't move on. It was a gray wasteland that stretched infinitely in all directions, filled with translucent figures that wandered aimlessly or stood frozen in their moment of death. They rotted slowly without Lady Death's guidance, trapped in an existence that was neither life nor true death.
Didi's warning made perfect sense now. But that horror, as profound as it was, wasn't what made Domino's heart clench.
A child's cry cut through the gray wasteland, terrified and so utterly lost that it physically hurt to hear.
Domino's gaze snapped toward the sound, and she saw him: a little boy who appeared no older than five years with blue eyes that seemed to glow against his pale skin and brown hair that fell across his forehead in soft waves. He was crying with the desperate, hiccupping sobs of someone too young to understand what was happening to them, small hands reaching out toward nothing and seeking comfort that wasn't coming.
The boy stood alone in that wasteland of the dead, so impossibly small and vulnerable, and when his gaze found Domino across the distance between worlds, relief flickered across his tear-stained face as if he'd finally found something familiar in the endless gray horror.
His hands moved towards her, then he crawled while crying, but before Domino could reach him, her vision went white as she was yanked back to the physical plane, gasping for air like she'd been drowning.
"Dom!" Jay's hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her while his eyes scanned her face with concern. "What happened? Is it the Death Stone?" He reached for the artifact, trying to pull it from her grip, but his fingers passed through it like it was made of smoke rather than matter, and the stone remained firmly in her palm no matter how hard he tried.
Before Jay could spiral into further questions, Domino grabbed his arm with her free hand.
She squeezed his arm harder, her grip probably painful but she couldn't make herself let go. "Jay, we need to go to the Cabal's submarine. Right now. There's a child there somehow, at the epicenter, and if we don't get to him soon..."
Jay's expression shifted from confusion to immediate understanding. "The clone? But that doesn't make sense, if my failsafe triggered, there shouldn't be anything left, the cellular structure should have completely..."
"Jay." Her voice cut through his spiral. "Do you trust me?"
Jay nodded without skipping a beat. "Together?" He extended his hand.
"Together." Domino took it without hesitation, lacing her fingers through his.
Blue light exploded around them as the Power Broker and his partner vanished from the Helicarrier deck in a flash.
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