After sending Hendry back home, Mario returned to the yacht and settled into a comfortable deck chair with a fishing rod.
Shaw crouched in his usual corner, lost in thought. The conversation with Mario had shaken him more than he wanted to admit. All those years of planning... would he be able to hold onto it if every human on Earth became a mutant?
People are unpredictable. All it would take is one mutant whose powers counter mine, and everything I've built would vanish like smoke.
But none of that was Mario's problem. He'd just been bored and decided to share some uncomfortable truths.
"Ms. Frost, how's that grilled squid coming along?"
You couldn't visit the seaside without eating seafood. That was just basic common sense.
Emma, focused on her cooking at the yacht's small galley, called back, "It's ready."
She carried over a platter loaded with grilled squid, roasted fish, and some kind of shellfish Mario couldn't identify. The smell alone made his mouth water.
Mario gave her an appreciative nod. "Looks perfect."
Then his expression shifted slightly. "Heads up. We've got company."
On his mini-map, a white dot was approaching the yacht from across the water. He pulled a blood-drawing kit from his inventory and set it on the table.
Emma immediately understood. Shaw pushed himself to his feet and moved to stand beside her.
The visitor reached the top deck moments later, a dagger gripped in his hand. He was young, maybe mid-twenties, with dark hair.
"Hello, doctor."
Shaw was surprised when he recognized the newcomer. A smile spread across his face, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Erik. What a pleasant surprise."
Emma's eyes narrowed as she studied the man. "He's here to kill you."
Shaw's smile didn't waver. "Lots of people want to kill me. It's an occupational hazard."
Mario, still working his way through the seafood platter, glanced at the future Magneto and Shaw.
If he had any tactical sense, he'd have gone straight for the ambush. Could've taken out Emma or Riptide before anyone knew what was happening. Instead, he's standing there announcing his intentions like some kind of discount assassin.
He shook his head slightly. Whatever beef existed between Shaw and Erik wasn't his concern. If one of them killed the other tonight, that was just how things worked out sometimes.
Emma picked up the blood-drawing kit and shared a meaningful look with Shaw. Some silent communication passed between them.
Shaw took the equipment and turned to Emma. "Hold him."
The moment the words left his mouth, Erik collapsed to one knee with a scream. It looked like someone was trying to crack his skull open from the inside.
Shaw advanced slowly, activating his energy absorption as a precaution. His power wasn't passive, it required conscious activation. That was the weakness Emma had exploited in their first encounter, and it remained his greatest vulnerability. When his mind was under psychic control, he couldn't absorb energy to protect himself.
Erik clutched his head with both hands.
Mario watched the struggle for a moment, then offered some helpful advice. "Ms. Frost, when you run into someone who can resist your psychic attacks, just grab a blunt object and go for the physical approach instead. Trust me, you'll enjoy it way more."
He pulled the frying pan from his inventory and held it out to her. "If you don't have a weapon handy, you can borrow my signature piece. It's served me well."
Emma accepted the pan with a slightly bewildered expression. Her eyes drifted toward the corner where Azazel sat, his expression vacant and drooling slightly.
The momentary distraction almost allowed Erik to break free from her mental grip. Emma snapped her focus back immediately, redoubling her psychic pressure and grinding him face-first into the deck.
She stared intently at him. Only by maintaining constant visual and mental contact could she unleash her full telepathic power. The frying pan felt surprisingly good in her hands. She approached Erik, who was pinned helplessly to the deck, and raised it high.
CLANG.
Erik's screams cut off instantly. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed unconscious.
Shaw looked at the White Queen with a complicated expression. Her eyes were literally gleaming with satisfaction. He shook his head slightly and stepped forward to begin drawing Erik's blood.
That's when the night sky lit up with signal flares.
In the distance, a Coast Guard patrol vessel switched on its searchlights and accelerated toward the yacht. A voice boomed across the water through a loudspeaker:
"THIS IS THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD. DO NOT MOVE YOUR VESSEL. REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE."
Several speedboats cut across the waves toward them.
Everyone turned to look at Mario, who was still working his way through dinner.
"Why are you looking at me? Do whatever you want. Just make sure I get the blood samples afterward."
Shaw, still in the process of drawing Erik's blood, looked at Emma. "Keep an eye on him."
He turned to Riptide. "Show them what we can do. Let's celebrate the beginning of our new future."
As he watched the armed men approaching in their speedboats, an amused smile spread across his face.
This world is better off controlled by a select few.
Riptide walked to the edge of the yacht and extended both hands, activating his mutant ability. Two miniature whirlwinds formed in his palms, spinning faster and faster, growing larger by the second.
Within moments, two tornados had materialized. He hurled them toward the sea.
The whirlwinds expanded exponentially the instant they left his control. In the blink of an eye, they'd grown several times larger, churning the ocean into chaos. Every speedboat on the water was instantly capsized, their occupants thrown into the waves.
Bang bang bang.
Seeing the speedboats go down, the Coast Guard on the patrol vessel opened fire. At the same moment, Emma spoke calmly, "There's a telepath among them."
She immediately shifted her focus, throwing up mental barriers to block Xavier's probing.
---
On the patrol vessel, Xavier pressed two fingers to his temple. "I can't sense Shaw anymore. The link is completely severed. Someone is blocking me."
"This has never happened before. There's someone on that ship with abilities like mine."
Moira, standing beside him, looked confused. "Someone like you?"
Xavier lowered his hand and explained helplessly, "Telepathy. They have another telepath blocking me. I'm sorry, I may not be much help here. You'll have to handle this yourselves."
---
Back on the yacht, Emma handed Mario the vial of blood she'd extracted from Erik. He stored it in his temperature-controlled container.
"All right, thank you all for the hospitality," Mario said, standing and stretching. "Special thanks to Emma, that grilled fish was excellent. My business here is done."
He walked toward the corner where Azazel sat in his stupor. "I'm taking him with me. If he cooperates with my research, I'll bring him back eventually. Until we meet again."
Mario picked up Azazel, then drank an invisibility potion. Both he and the mutant vanished from the luxury yacht, leaving Shaw, Emma, and Riptide staring at empty space.
Carrying his harvested blood samples and the incapacitated mutant, Mario returned to Endstar.
The moment Banner spotted Mario, he rushed over. "Is that a demon? Is there really a Hell?"
Looking at Azazel, whose appearance matched traditional descriptions of infernal demons from mythology, he felt his curiosity explode. This was a legendary creature, far more enticing than any mutant.
Unfortunately, Mario's next sentence immediately shattered his fantasy.
"He's a mutant. Very powerful one, too. He can teleport anywhere within his line of sight, has superhuman physical attributes, and this..." He lifted Azazel's tail. "This tail is strong enough to pierce standard bulletproof armor."
Of course, in a superhero world, bulletproof armor was often less useful than an ordinary shirt anyway.
After hearing the introduction, Banner grew even more fascinated with Azazel. Seeing the mutant's bizarre condition, he immediately understood how Mario had subdued him.
"Once he recovers, I won't be able to restrict his movements. Building a quantum limiter will take considerable time."
"Hmm. Let me check with Kaecilius and see if he has any magical solutions."
Mario pulled out his communication device and contacted Kaecilius back on Earth. Within moments, a portal opened and Kaecilius stepped through.
"A demon?"
Kaecilius also spotted Azazel lying on the ground and immediately frowned, summoning a weapon made of glowing magical constructs. But after sensing that Azazel carried none of the distinctive aura of demonic entities, he dismissed the weapon and looked up at Mario.
Before he could speak, Mario was already reacting with alarm to Kaecilius's appearance.
"What happened to you?"
Kaecilius looked terrible, deep dark circles under his eyes made him look like he'd been punched repeatedly in the face, and his cheeks had become noticeably gaunt despite Mario having fattened him up recently.
Mario quickly checked the mini-map and relaxed only after confirming Kaecilius was still marked green.
"What's going on with you? Someone who didn't know better would think you defected to Dormammu again."
Kaecilius immediately caught the revealing word. "Again? Are you saying I've defected to Dormammu before?"
But then he recalled the mages from the parallel universe who had looked at him so strangely. He let the matter drop.
Mario just laughed awkwardly and changed the subject. Kaecilius didn't press further and instead looked again at Azazel lying on the ground.
"What is this creature? It looks exactly like the demons from legend."
"A mutant. He can teleport. I called you here to see if you have any spells that can restrict his ability to use that power."
"Mutant?"
"Superpowered beings from another reality, similar to Inhumans, except their powers come from radiation activating dormant genes rather than Terrigen Crystals."
Kaecilius nodded understanding. He crouched down and placed his hand on Azazel's chest, a magic circle appearing around his wrist. After several seconds of examination, he looked up. "I can't locate his soul. It's... strange. I can draw a spatial-restriction array, but I'm not certain it will limit his teleportation. His ability doesn't stem from magic, so magical countermeasures might not work."
"Banner, let's find somewhere secure to lock him up first. We'll leave the rest to Kaecilius."
---
After settling Azazel into a reinforced containment cell, the three men gathered in the rest lounge, a comfortable space that researchers were forced to use when they worked themselves to exhaustion. The "forced" part was necessary because these scientists would not rest when absorbed in interesting work.
Mario poured coffee for Banner and Kaecilius from the nearby machine, then poured himself an extra-large iced cola. He sat next to Banner, took a huge gulp of cola, and belched contentedly.
"Ah, that hits the spot."
Then he fixed Kaecilius with a serious stare. "Now let's talk about those dark circles. You look like you've been on a three-day bender with no sleep."
Kaecilius was silent for a moment before choosing honesty. "The contents of the Darkhold have benefited my studies tremendously."
Mario straightened up and rubbed his forehead helplessly. "I knew it. I fucking knew it. Hand it over. From now on, you can only study that book when you're in my presence."
Kaecilius didn't argue. He produced the Darkhold and handed it to Mario, who immediately stored it in his inventory where no one but him could retrieve it.
Mario patted Kaecilius on the shoulder earnestly. "I know you're desperate to save your family. But forcing growth only causes problems. Shortcuts with dark magic always come with a price. Go back and rest for two full days. Recover properly, then come find me."
Watching Kaecilius leave through a portal, he sighed deeply. In his mind, he bumped the task of finding Ghost Rider up several notches on his priority list. According to the timeline, this world's Ghost Rider should still be the second-generation Rider, the one who rode the motorcycle.
He took the temperature-controlled case containing Erik's blood from his inventory, placed it on the table, and slid it toward Banner.
"This is Erik's blood, the one I told you about earlier. He can control electromagnetic forces. I assume you understand the four fundamental forces of the universe better than I do."
Banner nodded, accepting the case carefully. "Electromagnetic force? If someone could truly control the entire electromagnetic spectrum of the universe, they'd essentially be a god."
Mario nodded in agreement. Unfortunately, mutant abilities had limits. The Magneto in the movies had basically reduced electromagnetic control to glorified magnet tricks.
"Anything Level 4 ability or above, treat it seriously. Also, you can request vampires for your experiments. Don't worry about supply issues. Just contact Anna, she'll arrange everything," he said this casually, but Banner's reaction was far from calm. He hadn't been working with Mario long enough to know about certain aspects of this world.
"Vampires? There are vampires on Earth?"
"Yeah. Lots of them. They're spread across all walks of life. Some humans even help hide their identities. They feed on humans. They use every method you can imagine to gather humans like livestock. They raise them in captivity just to meet their need for blood."
Banner felt a chill run through his core. Part of him wanted to let the Hulk out just to smash something in sheer rage.
"In a couple of days, a vampire blood specialist will arrive to assist with your research. Then you'll see those bloodthirsty monsters for yourself."
-----
Interested in a Minecraft story? Check out "The Player in the Cultivation World"!