A dozen nuclear warheads detonated across New York City, each strike blooming into a brilliant, horrifying mushroom cloud—symbols of absolute annihilation.
The entire sky ignited into a blinding gold, as if the sun itself had descended upon the earth. Even the clouds high above were ripped apart by the shockwaves, torn into shreds by the raw fury of the explosions.
Below, every structure—skyscraper, tower, bridge, and street—was obliterated without exception. Concrete and steel were flung into the air like paper confetti, falling back to earth in a deadly storm of debris. Fire rolled outward from every blast zone, devouring all that existed in its path until nothing remained but molten ruin.
Like a cancer devouring a body, the nuclear fire spread through the dense urban jungle, detonating in multiple sectors at once. Towers hundreds of meters tall crumbled instantly under the impact, disintegrating into dust and twisted metal. The light of destruction expanded outward until the entire city was swallowed in a furnace of white-hot flame—New York had become an oven, burning everything alive within it.
Even aboard orbital space stations, astronauts could see the flashes of nuclear light across America's east coast with their bare eyes. The detonations sent tremors through the satellites themselves, their sensors briefly flickering under the interference. For one terrifying instant, global communication networks were distorted worldwide.
It had happened. The unthinkable had come to pass.
Inside America's largest nuclear launch facility, Deadpool sat in the control room with his boots kicked up on the console, watching his masterpiece unfold through the satellite feed. His mask hid whatever expression he wore, but the room around him was silent—its technicians sprawled unconscious on the floor, their fates uncertain.
At the entrance, heavily armed soldiers cautiously advanced, rifles raised, their fingers tightening on the triggers as they approached his unguarded back.
"I should've added a few more zeroes," Deadpool muttered to himself, his fingers brushing the handles of his twin katanas strapped to his back. "Because getting shot by a few hundred bullets? Yeah, that's gonna suck."
An instant later, a deafening storm of gunfire erupted.
"Correction," he groaned amid the chaos, his body riddled with bullets, "make that a few thousand."
---
When the nuclear glow finally faded, it revealed a choking haze of ash and dust thicker than any fog.
There was no longer a New York City. Not even a single building stood intact. The tallest skyscrapers had been vaporized, the streets erased, and even the faint outlines of the city's once-famous skyline had vanished into a field of scorched craters.
The radiation saturating the air was so extreme that not even bacteria could survive it. The ground temperature rivaled molten metal, and what little oxygen remained was laced with poison. Any living creature entering the area would either be vaporized on the spot or twisted into something monstrous.
From orbit, satellites could barely make out the terrain beneath the cloud cover—an uneven wasteland of craters deeper than those on the moon's surface. Each bomb site had left behind a pit dozens of meters deep. The first round of nuclear detonations had created tidal waves, but the second wave was so powerful it reversed the ocean's flow, driving the water back toward the Atlantic in violent, unnatural surges.
This unnatural current would later be blamed for the collapse of several island chains across the Atlantic Ocean.
New York—the beating heart of America, the financial capital of the world—was gone. In mere minutes, it had become a wasteland worse than any extraterrestrial environment.
Subsequent analysis confirmed what was already obvious: even wearing the most advanced astronaut suits, no human could safely enter the blast zone. The radiation levels were beyond measurable limits. The airborne toxins and microscopic dust would persist for decades, perhaps centuries.
Nothing could live here. Nothing could recover.
As one American scientist later concluded, "Even the microbes buried hundreds of meters underground were annihilated. There is no life—only carbon and ash."
Even viruses, those tenacious microscopic survivors of every extinction, were burned into harmless carbon residue.
---
It was over.
Everyone who had witnessed the event—from satellites in orbit to military command centers—felt the same chilling realization: this was the true power of the weapon that could end the world.
Before such destructive force, everything humanity had built—their cities, their armies, their history—was meaningless.
In less than ten minutes, 789 square kilometers of New York had been transformed into a lifeless inferno. Had there been no prior evacuation, millions—perhaps tens of millions—would have died in mere seconds.
There was a reason nuclear arms had been sealed away under international law. Their devastation was beyond human comprehension.
And yet, the question that lingered in every trembling mind was the same:
If something could survive even this… what hope did humanity have left?
For a moment, it seemed the war was finally over.
But deep within the heart of what had once been Queens, in the smoldering ruins of the New Umbrella Tower, the earth itself began to stir.
From beneath the cracked, molten soil, a human figure slowly pushed upward—his body coated in ash and blood, his skin knitting itself together as he rose amid the falling dust.
It was Marcus.
He stood tall amidst the burning wasteland, brushing the grime from his face, his tone casual and almost mocking.
"Dying," he muttered, "was even worse than I expected."
He reached down and pulled from the scorched ground his indestructible adamantium katana, its blade still gleaming faintly through the haze. Then, step by step, he began walking through the devastated ruins of what had once been New York City.
Yes—technically, Marcus had died.
But one of his abilities had saved him.
Skill 4 – Death Resistance:
When killed by any non-psychic means (including total disintegration, incineration, or atomic-level breakdown), the user may expend a percentage of biological energy to completely regenerate.
Each activation temporarily reduces maximum bio-energy by a fixed percentage for four hours.
It was a power derived from Deadpool's regenerative mutation, a godlike survival trait that had brought Marcus back from total destruction.
Had it been his original body aboard the Helicarrier instead of this vessel, he would have perished completely.
But survival came at a price. Even Marcus, reborn amidst the ashes, found the aftermath unbearable.
The entire sky above New York was choked in a thick, ochre haze—sunlight barely piercing through. The air was poison, and every breath burned his lungs. The ground beneath him glowed faintly red with residual heat; every step he took left behind melted footprints and torn flesh that healed only to be burned again.
He kept walking, one painful step after another—healing, burning, healing again.
Endlessly.
If there was ever a place that could be called hell, then this was it.