Marvel: The Awakened One

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Hawk and Gwen didn’t stay long in Westview.

It was the middle of the night, after all.

So…

About an hour later, Hawk gently draped the beige trench coat back over Gwen’s shoulders. He turned back to the door, where Andrew and Amy stood. They didn’t say anything, but the lingering sadness and reluctance in their eyes were plain as day.

Gwen offered a warm, reassuring smile. ”I know where you live now. I’ll come visit whenever I have some free time, Mrs. Chloe.”

Hawk, however, focused his attention on Andrew. ”The coming war is not something you can participate in. Staying here is the smartest move you can make.”

With that.

With a mere thought, he enveloped Gwen in his energy, and they instantly teleported back to the living room of 521A Palm Street.

The next second.

A streak of brilliant golden light tore through the night sky, breaking the atmosphere in the blink of an eye. Like a golden comet, Hawk rocketed toward Pluto.

True, his speed had reached the speed of light.

But…

While the speed of light might seem terrifyingly fast on Earth, out in the vastness of the cosmos, it was essentially the baseline speed limit.

Logically speaking, with two of the universe’s ultimate cheat codes—the Reality Stone and the Mind Stone—in his possession, his Seventh Sense, the Gold Cosmo, should be constantly growing, pushing him ever closer to the absolute peak of power.

And in reality, it was.

His Cosmo had nearly doubled in size since his initial awakening.

But…

His speed remained capped at the speed of light. He couldn’t break the barrier.

At first, Hawk thought it was an Earth problem—that the planet simply wasn’t large enough for him to accelerate properly. But once he hit the vacuum of space, he found the restriction remained.

He had, however, figured out the root of the problem.

Yahweh!

More accurately, it was the residual psychic dissonance left behind by Yahweh sending those winged freaks to mess with his timeline.

To put it simply:

His mind wasn’t entirely at peace.

It was like enjoying a perfectly good meal, only to suddenly bite into a handful of flies.

It wouldn’t kill you, but it was profoundly disgusting.

This lingering disgust had created a mental blockage, preventing his Cosmo from flowing with absolute freedom.

Fortunately, the solution was straightforward.

Kill those two Blood Angels—Jack and Allen.

Once he crushed their souls and tossed them into the Prison of Acid Rain, his mind would clear. The blockage would vanish.

Faster than light!

If he reached that speed, he figured he’d be like the Flash—capable of tearing through the timeline even without the Time Stone.

Lost in these thoughts, Hawk arrived at Pluto. With a resounding BOOM, he plunged directly into the Hell Dimension, which was now completely unguarded against him.

This open-door policy was a gesture of goodwill from Mephisto, a token of trust established after Hawk had incidentally saved him during their last encounter.

Whether Mephisto had truly turned over a new leaf was debatable. But for now, Hawk was satisfied with the arrangement.

Inside the small tavern in Hell.

Mephisto was roaring with laughter. The horns that had been shattered were now fully regrown. He stroked one of his newly formed demonic horns, boasting, ”The Hell Dimension is still a bit of a fixer-upper right now, but I’m already halfway healed. Just give me a little more—”

Hawk cut him off.

”The Angel of Death has surfaced.”

Gack…

Mephisto, who had been about to brag that he just needed a little more time to fully recover, choked. His expression froze instantly. He stared at Hawk, unblinking.

Hawk’s voice was calm, almost conversational.

”They’re scheduled to arrive in Texas on Earth-date November 11th. They seem to have a specific rendezvous point. Tell me where it is.”

This was the intel he had extracted from Andrew in Westview.

After receiving the letter, Andrew had rushed to the address of the priest, Moreau. He had been on the verge of interrogating the man, but Jack and Allen had shown up. With his back against the wall, Andrew had been forced to fight.

The result…

He had barely survived. Gravely injured, he had managed to evade their pursuit, stowed away on a cargo ship, and passed out from sheer exhaustion.

That was the reason Hawk had abandoned his bed in the middle of the night to track down Mephisto.

Mephisto’s expression remained frozen. Slowly, he forced out the name of a canyon monastery located near the border town of Shafter, Texas.

”The Flint Monastery.”

”What’s so special about that place?”

Hawk demanded, cutting straight to the point. ”And why do they have to be there exactly on November 11th?”

Mephisto looked sick.

”The Flint Monastery… it was the Hell Dimension’s very first anchor point on Earth.”

”And November 11th?”

”That’s the anniversary of the day I first set foot on Earth.”

”And when you put the two together?”

”...”

Mephisto rubbed his face wearily and looked at Hawk. ”If the Angel of Death arrives at the Flint Monastery on November 11th and awakens precisely at midnight… the Hell Dimension will recognize him as one of its own. Once he awakens, he can launch a direct, instantaneous invasion of my realm.”

He paused, a look of genuine despair crossing his demonic features.

”If he gets in here right now… with the shape I’m in… I don’t think I can take him.”

Hawk looked at Mephisto, whose face practically screamed, ’Help a brother out!’ He scoffed and pulled his right arm free from the demon’s desperate grip.

”Just close the anchor point. Problem solved.”

”I can’t.”

”Why not?”

Hawk raised an eyebrow. ”You managed to shut down every other gateway to Earth. That’s why I had to fly three hours through space just to get here.”

Mephisto shook his head miserably.

”The first anchor point can never be closed. It’s not just me. No Death Lord, no matter what realm they rule, can close their primary anchor. I didn’t make the rule. Death did.”

”Death?”

Hawk was genuinely surprised.

”What’s the point of a rule like that?”

”To encourage internal competition.”

”...”

Hawk had run through a dozen different possibilities in his head, but none of them were that. He looked at Mephisto, who was currently shrugging helplessly, and took a deep breath. He thought for a moment, then spoke with absolute sincerity.

”Praise be to Death! What a brilliant rule!”

He wasn’t an idiot, and he wasn’t reckless.

Until his Cosmo could be fully manifested as reality, he had no business picking a fight with one of the Five Cosmic Entities.

Especially Death, an abstract conceptual goddess.

When you’re weak, keep your head down and farm. When you’re strong, claim it was yours ’since ancient times.’

Hawk understood the game perfectly. So, tossing out a little praise? It didn’t cost him a dime.

Mephisto looked deeply uncomfortable, but he quickly raised his glass and echoed the sentiment. ”Praise be to Death!”

If Hawk was praising her, Mephisto—who was essentially a high-level middle manager working under her jurisdiction—certainly couldn’t be caught lacking.

She probably wasn’t paying attention.

But what if?

If Death noticed he wasn’t toeing the company line, his career prospects would be severely impacted.

Mephisto thought to himself.

Hawk grabbed the bottle and poured them both a fresh drink. As he did, he asked casually, ”By the way, on my way here, I didn’t sense any trace of the Heaven Dimension.”

During his flight to Pluto, he had felt a massive, ominous power slowly creeping toward the solar system.

Unless he was mistaken, that was the Dark Dimension.

Hawk figured Dormammu must have hit a snag and missed his connecting flight, which was probably why the Ancient One had postponed her retirement.

But that wasn’t the issue.

The issue was that if the Heaven Dimension planned to launch an all-out war on Hell on November 11th, logically, they should already be staging their forces somewhere near the solar system.

But even with his Seventh Sense fully extended, Hawk hadn’t detected a single feather of those winged freaks.

Mephisto let out a dry, rattling laugh.

”Don’t worry. They’ll be there.”

”How can you be so sure?”

”You know whose payroll Yahweh is on, right?”

”The Celestials.”

”Yes. But the Celestials were created to manage the timeline of the primary multiverse.”

Mephisto was talking about Eternity.

One of the abstract cosmic entities, the physical manifestation of the Marvel Multiverse’s timeline. His sole purpose was to maintain its stability.

To help him manage it, he had created the Celestials.

As for Eternity himself…

No one knew where he actually was.

”It’s all about time.”

”Simply put: the moment the Angel of Death awakens, the Heaven Dimension will instantly manifest.”

”Yahweh has used this exact tactic to blindside plenty of Death Lords in the past.”

”The Angel of Death infiltrates silently. When the Angel awakens, Heaven arrives. It’s a perfectly coordinated inside-outside strike. Most Death Lords are completely overrun before they even realize they’re under attack.”

Mephisto sighed, a look of profound relief crossing his face as he looked at Hawk. ”Thank the dark below I have you. You have to pull your older brother out of this fire.”

Hawk’s eyebrow arched dangerously.

”Older brother?”

”Younger brother!”

Mephisto’s expression instantly became dead serious as he corrected himself. ”Help a younger brother out! From now on, you’re my older brother. No, forget that. You’re my Godfather!”

It’s a well-known fact.

Demons have no shame.

Hawk, however, did.

So…

Hawk downed his drink in one gulp, stood up, and waved a dismissive hand.

Mephisto craned his neck, watching Hawk approach the tavern door, and shouted after him.

”Brother! Godfather…!”

”Enough. Just sit tight and wait.”

Hawk didn’t even look back as he waved him off. The moment he stepped out of the tavern, he transformed into a streak of golden light, taking another three hours to return to 521A Palm Street.

A round trip of over six hours.

The sun was already high in the sky.

Gwen, who had gotten home at two-thirty in the morning and slept until seven, was in the kitchen, humming happily as she prepared breakfast.

Hawk knew exactly why she was in such a good mood.

Because last night, Amy had given her a gift.

It wasn’t anything expensive or flashy.

It was just the simple silver ring Andrew had bought at a discount store when he proposed to her all those years ago.

It probably hadn’t cost more than ten dollars.

But Gwen had been absolutely thrilled.

Hawk walked into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. She turned her head, popped a piece of torn bread into his mouth, and he breathed in the scent of her hair.

”I’m heading to Texas.”

”Did you figure out what’s going on?”

”Yeah.”

”...Alright.”

Gwen turned around completely in his arms and looked up at him with a soft, gentle smile.

”Come back soon. I’ll be waiting for you. And your sister is waiting for you to bring her back, too.”

”I will.”

”...”

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