The next day, major media outlets around the world went into a frenzy reporting on what had happened in New Mexico.
If it had only been Thor failing to lift Mjolnir, it might not have caused such a global stir.
But when you added Kaecilius fighting Loki one-on-one, Magneto personally entering the fray, and Adam leading a full force that culminated in him raising Mjolnir and unleashing massive divine power that triggered widespread weather anomalies, it became impossible to cover up.
Even an idiot could tell that something enormous had gone down in New Mexico. Superhumans of incredible power had been involved, and a fierce battle had erupted.
Now, anyone with even basic intelligence channels knew roughly what had occurred. With Magneto... the big player... showing up and going all out, the rumors of Thor, the God of Thunder, descending to Earth were confirmed.
Scraps of information about the Eternals and the mutated creatures also began quietly spreading.
"So that's how it went down. We couldn't keep it contained," Coulson said, looking exhausted with bandages wrapped all over his body. "The special serum you injected me with earlier… there won't be any side effects, right?"
"Given the situation, you coming back alive was already a miracle. I had prepared myself to lose you. Don't worry about the serum. It's only a prototype with accelerated healing properties, but it was enough to patch up your wrecked body."
Fury stood with his hands behind his back, staring out the window. Sunlight bathed his figure, yet it couldn't dispel the heavy shadow on his face.
Everyone knew that from this moment on, the world was heading in a new direction. The terrifying power held by superhumans could no longer be hidden.
As for suppressing the news like before… how exactly was he supposed to spin this one? Tell people it was just an unusual global weather event?
An event so unusual that every storm and lightning strike across the planet grew legs, traveled over a thousand miles, and specifically converged on New Mexico?
"I have a feeling, Coulson, that if we try to give the public a straight-faced explanation, they'll take it as a serious insult," Fury said, hands still clasped behind his back.
Coulson understood instantly. "Because we'd be insulting their intelligence. Then we flood the zone with fake stories. Bury the real information under mountains of garbage. At least it'll dilute the impact of the event."
"It's the only play we have. But I'm more worried about Adam... that dangerous bastard! Motherfucker! He's the biggest winner in all of this!" Fury was normally a very composed man, but thinking about the instigator of this global uproar made it hard to stay calm.
He flipped through Adam's file again and again. He had spent an entire day and night trying to figure it out: who the hell was this guy, and why could he stir up so much chaos?
"Director, instead of focusing on his boldness and ambition, we should figure out something else first. Intelligence suggests he always seems to know a lot of classified information. Maybe that's how he attracted Magneto, who was investigating ancient mutated creatures. Everything else followed from there," Coulson said.
Their psychological profile on Adam had a new conclusion: Adam was exceptionally skilled at exploiting opportunities. Beneath that lazy demeanor hid sharp cunning. He could always combine the resources at his disposal like building blocks, assembling them into the most valuable configuration possible.
The report was fresh and might prove useful later, but right now it did nothing to help.
It only fueled Fury's anger further. His breathing grew heavy, chest rising and falling as fury boiled inside him.
"The way you're acting makes me suspect you've been parasitized by a Xenomorph and joined his side. I suggest you get an X-ray checkup," Coulson said with a serious expression.
Fury glanced at him. He knew the senior agent was half-joking, half-serious. Since he said it, he genuinely had doubts.
"I will. And not just me... everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. will undergo regular medical exams from now on," Fury replied, rubbing his forehead.
Parasitism… He thought again about the insane method Coulson had described.
Taking a freshly implanted larva and putting it into his own body to gain part of Thor's genetic power? Then lifting Mjolnir as a result?
Honestly, if he didn't know Coulson wouldn't lie to him, and if every surveillance record on site hadn't been instantly cut off and destroyed by Magneto's magnetic field, he would have suspected Coulson was drunk.
The whole thing was simply too absurd. Even if Adam had used magic, or... more extremely... sacrificed one of his Xenomorphs to some extra-dimensional demon god to achieve it, Fury would have found that easier to accept.
"The value of these Xenomorphs far exceeds our imagination. We can also settle one of our earlier speculations: a larva that has only recently implanted can be surgically removed, and the host will most likely survive," Coulson said.
Fury asked, "What about the one inside Adam? He probably gained superhuman strength through the larva's genetics, yet he was able to remove the one that had been inside him for a long time and swap it with Thor's."
"Maybe Adam can control the larva to halt its development. But once a larva chestbursts, the host is likely doomed. The creature consolidates and steals the host's best genetic material. Combined with our analysis of the Abomination's remains, that's the most probable outcome."
"Even the host's healing factor fails…" Fury's face darkened further. If that was true, these things were the perfect counter to all superhumans. Yet his eyes also burned with intense heat.
He hated Adam. He hated even more that he hadn't recognized the Xenomorphs' potential sooner and moved in. Most of all, he hated that he wasn't Adam... the one who controlled this terrifying race for himself.
But that wouldn't stay the case for long.
Fury finally turned around. "Still, it's not certain. A chestburster takes the host's superior genes. But what about the remaining genetic material? How does it classify the detached Xenomorph? If it's still recognized as part of the host, then of course the healing factor fails... self-healing can't create a second set of organs. There must be unknown secrets we haven't cracked yet."
If living beings didn't have this recognition mechanism, a minor injury could lead to random new brains, hearts, or limbs growing at the wound site during normal healing.
The body couldn't "heal" extra organs that shouldn't exist. But what if the host consciously controlled their super-healing, or external genetic interference "created" a second set of organs? Like the ones taken from the chest cavity by a Xenomorph?
No... there was still the question of whether the host's healing factor even had that kind of flexibility, and whether the remaining genetic material could support it.
Fury and Coulson exchanged a look.
Coulson looked suspicious. "Director, something about your state seems off. Either you're not Nick Fury, or you've been running some insane operation behind my back. Something extremely high-value to make you this worked up."
"Take a guess."
"I've already guessed what it is, but my instincts say it's not that simple. Adam wouldn't leave such an obvious weakness, and the most important Queen has always stayed by his side."
Both men fell silent.
…
Adam returned with his spoils: Thor, Makkari, and seventeen mutated creatures.
He flew back on Tony's jet, of course.
The cost had been heavy. More than half the Xenomorph forces he brought had died. He himself had suffered multiple serious injuries. In the end, he and Magneto had worked together to wear down Kaecilius, using Thor's life as leverage to temporarily force Loki to retreat.
The only real annoyance was an old man who kept trying to communicate with him.
"…Understood. Yes, goodbye. Stop bothering me."
"Peace? Yes, long live peace. I love peace. I will practice it through action…"
The X-Men had arrived too late to join the fight, but Professor Xavier was incredibly annoying. His global telepathic reach was even more so.
Whenever Adam thought about Xavier using Cerebro to potentially massacre billions, his head throbbed.
The old man was formidable, and now he had fixated on Adam, constantly trying to reach out and talk. It was giving him a headache.
"He's finally gone." Adam carefully sensed the area, confirming that Professor Xavier's telepathic presence had disappeared.
Adam could do mental links too, but only with his Xenomorphs. That gave him some resistance to Xavier's mind control. He could even rally the consciousness of all his Xenomorphs into a mental network to resist any form of psychic intrusion.
For now, though, the scale wasn't enough to block Xavier.
"After all, he's one of the two poles of mutantkind. He and Erik have been fighting for most of their lives," Raven said, watching Adam.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You did it on purpose. You used Erik again."
"You call that using him? It was a transaction. Erik got everything he wanted about the mutated creatures. Without me, where would he have learned any of it? The intelligence I provided helped him plan his next moves. The fact that he left immediately after getting it proves that."
Adam tossed Mjolnir from his left hand to his right, then back again.
Arcs of lightning constantly rose from the hammer without harming him in the slightest.
Raven looked away from the hammer, still wearing an expression of disbelief. It all felt too ridiculous. Adam... a human... had gone out with an army and come back a "god"?
"You didn't actually kill the real Thunder God?" Raven pointed at the unconscious Thor on the floor.
"Your expression is funny. It makes me feel like a knockoff. And I sense respect from you. I'm honored. At least it shows my efforts are genuinely paying off."
Adam stood before the heavy iron doors of his building, taking in the bullet holes and the large breach clearly made by heavy weaponry. He looked up at the battered structure, then glanced back at the corpses scattered outside.
Tsk. In the few hours he had been gone, some fearless idiots had indeed come knocking.
"They were well-trained. We couldn't identify who they worked for, but they knew the building's layout well. Probably S.H.I.E.L.D.," Raven answered.
"You think Blade leaked it? Or maybe they already had the blueprints."
Adam didn't take it to heart. Plenty of people wanted a piece of him, but few had the boldness and speed to organize a heavily armed strike team in such a short time.
"I'm glad both of you are still alive," Adam said, looking at Elektra lying inside with one leg missing. He sounded genuinely relieved.
"Boss, you need to give me a raise. Even with the Hand, I never had to fight a heavy weapons squad," Elektra complained while trying to regenerate her severed leg.
She showed him her broken blade, looking half aggrieved and half proud.
Adam offered sincere condolences, saying it was just a minor thing like losing a limb, nothing worth mentioning, and promised it wouldn't happen again.
"As you instructed, I let them take one Xenomorph egg. I still don't understand what you're trying to do," Elektra said, puzzled.
"To expand the army. Those guys already got their hands on Xenomorph blood anyway. After all the fights with vampires, blood from injured Xenomorphs has spread to vampire strongholds all over the city. Getting samples wasn't hard for them. I'm just speeding up the process."
Adam said something they didn't fully understand, then turned his attention to Thor on the floor.
The large hole in Thor's chest had already stopped bleeding. The vitality of Odin's bloodline was truly ridiculous.
Of course, it also helped that Adam had removed the larva immediately, minimizing the damage. If it had developed to full chestburst, Thor would have had a low chance of survival... depending on what this universe's Odin would do.
Most likely, some external force would intervene with magic or similar means to repair his chest.
"Elektra, bandage the prince here. I already contacted Tony Stark. He's sending a team of doctors. This is a chance to study a god's offspring... he was very eager," Adam instructed casually.
He couldn't let Thor die. As long as the god still had one breath left, it was fine. But if he died completely, it would become a major incident.
No one knew how Odin would react, and the fleeing Loki would probably go berserk.
Adam first selected a Xenomorph egg and implanted it into Makkari, the speedster, ensuring his forces would soon have someone capable of rapid troop transport.
Tony's people were efficient. Before long, a helicopter arrived with several internal medicine specialists and advanced medical equipment.
"Is this the Thunder God everyone's talking about online?"
"How did he end up like this? A small portion of internal organs is missing, but the remaining functions are still far beyond human levels!"
"Mr. Adam, we reattached his severed hand and did everything we could, but he still won't wake up," one doctor finally reported.
"Don't worry. I have a way."
Adam picked up Mjolnir and placed it on Thor.
BOOM!
A bolt of lightning struck the god.
The power of the Thunder God was rapidly absorbed by Thor's body.
"Son of Odin, you were never truly parasitized by my power, so there's no need to fight me to the death for the sake of your dignity. That means the two of us can have a proper talk. I imagine you have a lot to say to me."
Adam spoke slowly. "Why don't we start with why the All-Father exiled you to Earth and stripped you of your powers? Maybe you should listen to my advice."
^^^
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