Three months had passed.
The world continued its frenzied dance, blissfully unaware that a god now walked its streets, armed with federal identifications, doctoral degrees from the most prestigious institutions, a burgeoning arms empire, and an artificial companion who could, with a thought, cripple entire nations.
Markus had, with effortless precision, acquired doctorates in all six of his selected engineering disciplines. MIT, Stanford, and CalTech now bore his name in reverent confusion, their most esteemed minds still puzzling over how one man could simultaneously advance half a dozen sciences and with the casual indifference of a man choosing between wines.
Eden Armaments had bloomed into a serpent of industry. Onyx, tireless and merciless, had manipulated markets, erased competitors, and installed their products in law enforcement divisions across two dozen states and six European countries. Compact rifles with surgical precision. Sidearms that could outperform military prototypes by a generation. Ballistic armor so refined it dismissed shotgun blasts like rain against glass.
Sales surged. Markets bowed.
Onyx, his efficient, watchful synthetic aide, had doubled Markus's wealth in the first month alone. Through acquisitions and subtle digital puppeteering, she turned financial instruments into weapons of conquest. By the third month, Markus had claimed a quiet place among the world's billionaires.
Not that he cared. Money was crude. A tool. An irrelevant score kept by those too weak to shape reality directly. For him, it served only as lubrication, ensuring the world's mechanisms turned smoothly while he forged his dominion beneath the surface.
And of course, a proper dominion required a castle.
Gothic, by tradition. Towering spires and blackened stone, glass etched with forgotten prayers, long echoing halls that honored silence more than sound. For reasons he no longer questioned, such structures followed him across worlds. Inevitable, like gravity to stars. His new citadel, perched near a glacial lake and shrouded by ancient woods, was eight months from completion. For now, the penthouse suite sufficed. Discretion guaranteed. Opulence incidental.
Not all, however, chose wisdom in the face of divinity.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had come knocking, twice, to be precise. They received polite refusals and professionally veiled disdain in return. The Ancient One, to her credit, had not reappeared. Whether she was devising a trap or merely biding her time, he could not say. But at least she understood the concept of restraint.
One bald idiot, however, did not.
Charles Xavier.
The sanctimonious patron of mutants. A man whose sermons of coexistence rang hollow beneath the weight of his own hypocrisies. He offered sanctuary to gifted children while binding their minds, leashing their power, and preaching submission as virtue.
He had dared to peer into Markus's mind. Cerebro, that cathedral of cerebral arrogance, had tried to map a god's mindscape.
It had failed, catastrophically.
The backlash had fried its circuits and left Xavier with a migraine that could cripple demigods. Markus didn't even registered it as an attempt.
Since then, the man had turned to pleas.
Phone calls. Invitations. Supplications masquerading as diplomacy. Markus had considered simply erasing him.
Xavier's counterpart, Magneto, the supposed villain had not reached out once. No gestures. No overtures. No veiled threats.
Markus respected that.
The true gentleman often wore the armor of silence.
The phone buzzed again.
Xavier.
Markus stared at the screen for a moment, then answered. His voice, as always, smooth as sculpted frost.
"Xavier."
"Mr. Tenebris," came the voice, polished and plastic, "I was wondering if you might reconsider—"
"I have."
A beat of stunned silence.
"I shall have an audience," Markus said, every syllable honed and cold. "You will come to me. Two days hence. My suite."
He ended the call.
No farewells. No room for negotiation.
Xavier would come, or he would not. Either way, the world would remain exactly as Markus intended.
Days passed and the hour had come.
Onyx opened the suite door with the poised elegance of a noble hostess and the silent authority of an empress. Her every movement exuded precision, fluid, deliberate, and laced with an undercurrent of command that required no words.
"Welcome," she said coolly. "The master is expecting you."
Charles Xavier entered first, his iconic wheelchair gliding silently across polished marble. His face was a mask of practiced calm, but the tension around his eyes betrayed unease. Behind him walked Ororo Munroe, Storm. Draped in regal poise, her gaze simmering with restrained power. Lastly, Scott Summers, the idiotic soldier, rigid in posture and awkward in a suit that looks foreign on him. The faint gleam of ruby quartz behind his visor cast muted reflections across the floor.
They were guided into meeting room of the suite The long, black table at the center gleamed like a blade at rest. At its head sat Markus.
He wore a three piece suit of charcoal silk, its cut sharp, its presence less attire and more declaration. At his right, Onyx stood, not as an assistant, but as a sentinel carved from perfection. Her synthetic form exuded beauty honed for elegance, but her stillness was that of a poised predator.
Charles rolled forward and offered a diplomatic smile. "I had heard you were tall, Mr. Tenebris," he said with a light chuckle, clearly aiming to dispel the tension. "But I must admit, I hadn't imagined to this extent."
Markus regarded him with the faintest quirk of the lip. A smile, perhaps, though it held no warmth.
"Fortunate genetics," he replied, voice cool and polished like obsidian glass. "A touch of ancestral excellence, I suppose."
Charles's smiled and pushed on. "I presume, by now, you've become aware of individuals like us. Mutants."
Markus's eyes gleamed for a moment, a predator recognizing a poorly set trap.
"No," he said, his tone turning faintly sharper. "Though I am familiar with the term Homo Superior. That… makes considerably more sense."
He leaned forward, fingertips steepled, as the air around him grew still.
"Evolution does not seek approval, Xavier. It does not apologize. It advances by elimination, not negotiation. Nature does not ask; it replaces."
His gaze slid across the table, cold and deliberate.
"But the term mutant… that, I find curious. A word soaked in fear, dripping with the stench of revulsion. Mutation. Deformity. Aberration. Why choose such a term to represent the future?"
Ororo frowned slightly, her jaw tensing.
Scott shifted in his chair, a flicker of discomfort barely masked.
Markus's voice dropped lower, quieter, yet more dangerous.
"Tell me, Xavier… why label your own kind with a word so steeped in dread? Mutant is not a celebration. It is a diagnosis."
The opening blow had landed, clean, unapologetic, and precise.
He would not be lured. He would not be cajoled into someone else's dream of tolerance wrapped in chains. He had walked through empires and multiverses. He would not kneel for a schoolteacher with illusions of sainthood.
Markus tilted his head ever so slightly, as though hearing a distant whisper no one else could perceive. In truth, Subjugation had long since begun peeling apart the layers of Charles Xavier's psychic handiwork, not just from Ororo, but from every pliable soul the man had gathered beneath his roof. It was subtle. Refined. The kind of control that wore the mask of mentorship while nesting insidiously in the heart.
"I see…" Markus murmured, his voice like silk brushing over steel. His eyes drifted toward Ororo, cold and deliberate. "He's been using his gifts… not to guide, but to subdue you."
Ororo's expression faltered, a spark of doubt flaring behind her eyes. Her regal composure cracked, not from anger, but revelation. She turned to Xavier, the question heavy on her lips.
"Charles?" she asked, her voice taut with disbelief.
Xavier did not answer. His fingers folded over one another, his expression composed. But the corners of his mouth had tightened ever so slightly.
That was enough.
Markus exhaled a quiet, almost amused chuckle. "Ah," he said, reclining slightly. "No denial. How telling."
He extended a hand, unclenched, unthreatening, but absolute in intent. "Allow me to demonstrate."
With nothing more than a thought, he reached into Ororo's mind unweave. The threads of compulsion were soft, gentle even. Delicate layers of suggestion disguised as comfort. Caution masquerading as counsel. Instinct stifled in the name of peace. A prison, elegant in its deception.
He removed them all.
The atmosphere shifted. ..Literally.
The air pulsed, thick with rising pressure. Wind coiled from nowhere, swirling within the confines of the room as if the suite itself had exhaled in rage. Ororo's eyes ignited with electric fury, strands of white hair lifting in the storm that now circled her in defiance.
"You…" she hissed, turning toward Xavier with betrayal carved into every syllable. "You violated my mind."
Markus remained seated, serene in contrast to the tempest erupting beside him. He regarded the scene with detached composure, as though watching a painting animate itself.
"I would suggest you contact Erik Lehnsherr," he said coolly, folding one leg over the other. "Say what you will about the man. But he does not clothe his will in the language of consent. He does not violate under the guise of virtue."
Ororo turned to him, her expression awash in fury, confusion and finally, understanding. The winds began to settle.
Her voice, when it came, was quiet but resolute.
"…Thank you," she said.
Sincere. Measured. And free.
Ororo swept from the chamber with regal fury, her footsteps as sharp and deliberate as the tempest she had once quelled. The door clicked shut behind her, not softly, not politely, but with the finality of judgment rendered.
Silence followed. But it was not peace. It was tension coiled like a blade behind velvet.
Markus remained seated in unshaken poise, his form carved in stillness. One leg rested atop the other with aristocratic elegance, and his gloved hands were steepled beneath his chin, disdain clear on his face. His turquoise gaze, unblinking and cold, now turned fully upon Charles Xavier.
"Well then," Markus began, his voice a silk thread drawn over whetted steel, "are there any further hypocrisies you would care to parade before me, Xavier? Or shall we extend the fiction of your unblemished conscience a moment longer?"
Xavier's jaw stiffened, and the weariness behind his eyes sharpened into something harder. Pride, perhaps, or the last defense of a man long accustomed to moral high ground.
He did not speak.
He reached.
Markus felt it, of course, the whisper soft scrape of telepathy, like a shadow's breath against stone. A delicate attempt. A probing of mental defenses. A routine trick from a man used to open minds like books.
But this book did not open.
It burned the hand that touched it. Markus veiled the telepathy of Xavier, making him feel the absence of his power.
Xavier's breath caught, a brief and involuntary hitch of recognition.
Markus's lips curved into a smile, he was amused.
"Ah," he said with cultured detachment. "Is something amiss, Xavier? Have the faithful choirs of thought abandoned you? Or is it simply… quiet in here?"
Scott Summers, ever the dutiful sentinel, moved to reach for his visor in reflex. A habit of a guard dog.
Markus did not bother to gesture.
A silent command sparked through the air, electricity leaping from the unseen into Scott's nerves. Not enough to kill. Merely enough to teach. Muscles locked. Limbs froze. The young man writhed in place, his face a mask of agony. His screams choked by the pain coursing through his body.
Markus did not deign to look his way.
Xavier flinched, this time without pretense. The facade cracked.
"Stop," he commanded, voice no longer smooth, but urgent. "Enough! I said stop! Please, this accomplishes nothing!"
Now Markus turned to him, slowly, like a sovereign descending from the throne not out of necessity, but to remind the court whose hand still held the blade.
"On the contrary," Markus said softly, his turquoise eyes glowing with quiet menace, "this accomplishes precisely what is required. Understanding."
Xavier's composure faltered, his tone lowered, lips taut with the bitter taste of concession. "There is no common ground between us. That much is clear. I only ask…" He hesitated. "…return my powers and Scott his voice. End this."
Markus rose, unhurried. Each movement measured, each step a declaration.
"You trespassed upon my mind. Violated my sanctum. Entered my home cloaked in benevolence, while your thoughts carried scalpel and leash."
He paused.
"But very well. A lesson has been delivered."
With a simple thought the current ceased. Summers gasped, breath returning in ragged tremors.
Xavier blinked. A quiet murmur of telepathy stirred behind his eyes once more. His power restored.
But it felt… lesser. As if touched by something older and colder than man or mutant.
Markus turned his back to them, walking toward the door with the languid certainty of one who had already reshaped the room by presence alone.
"All of this was avoidable," he said, not looking over his shoulder. "I harbor no interest in your masquerade of capes and ideologies. Had you remained distant, as courtesy dictates… none of this theatre would have played."
He stopped before the door.
"Leave, Xavier. Take your dog. Consider yourselves fortunate."
He opened the door with a wave of his hand.
"And go while my mood remains merciful."
The moment Charles Xavier departed, the ripples began.
Across government channels, encrypted satellites, and shadowed networks buried beneath layers of deniability, the report of his visit to Markus Tenebris's penthouse swept through unseen corridors. S.H.I.E.L.D. was among the first to receive it.
And at the heart of it all, Nick Fury sat alone in his darkened office, reading the report.
His eye narrowed.
He didn't say a word.
He didn't need to.
Some time later, Phil Coulson and Maria Hill were summoned. No pleasantries. No context. Just an order sealed with steel:
"Invite him to headquarters. Make it sound official, civil. Mention a weapons contract. If he hesitates… remind him what we know."
They understood.
That afternoon, the elevator to Markus's penthouse chimed. The doors opened to reveal Coulson the calm and courteous, next to him Hill, professional to the edge of severity. Both were clad in black suits, badges ready, posture set.
They had no idea what awaited them.
Onyx opened the door with a grace so precise it felt rehearsed. She was the embodiment of calculated elegance. Her attire today was an immaculate black dress with violet accents, refined yet entirely modern.
"Agents," she greeted, her tone calm, controlled. "My master is expecting you."
And indeed, he was.
Markus had already plucked the relevant threads from their thoughts before the elevator finished rising. Their plan was simplistic: categorize him as a mutant, then use that misclassification as leverage. A threat wrapped in bureaucracy. They believed it would work.
They had no idea what they were dealing with.
As the agents stepped into the dark toned meeting room, the walls themselves seemed to hush in reverence. Markus was seated at the table's head like the centerpiece of a crown.
He rose to greet them with the warmth.
"Agents" Markus quipped a question in his tone, Coulson and Hill introduced themselves. "A pleasure," he said, his voice smooth as aged wine poured over cold iron. "Please, be seated. Make yourselves… comfortable."
He gestured with an open palm, the motion fluid and precise.
To his right, Onyx sat with the stillness of a statue. Markus reclined slightly, his smile serene, fingers steepled before him like a judge awaiting testimony.
"Now then," he said softly, eyes glinting like starlight, "let us begin. I am most curious to hear the reason for your visit."
He already knew.
But the performance, after all, was half the entertainment.
Coulson was the first to speak, voice smooth and practiced, as if this were just another polite briefing.
"Mr. Tenebris," he began, "we're here on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. to discuss a potential weapons contract. Eden Armaments has drawn considerable attention. We believe a collaboration could serve mutual interests. Our Director would prefer to speak with you directly at our headquarters."
Markus leaned back slightly in his chair, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. "A flattering suggestion," he replied with aristocratic detachment, "yet my schedule is rather constrained. I'm afraid such a visit will have to wait."
A pause. Just long enough.
Hill stepped in, voice clipped and cold. "We understand you're a mutant, Mr. Tenebris."
She delivered it like a scalpel. Surgical, precise, and meant to draw blood.
"It would be... unfortunate," she continued, "if such a revelation were to make its way into public discourse. Especially now, with your company's prominence rising as quickly as it is."
Markus stilled. His smile came slowly, unfolding like frost across a polished mirror.
"And what precisely leads you to that... fascinating conclusion?"
Hill's response was immediate. "Charles Xavier."
Markus laughed.
Low and smooth, yet carrying the unmistakable edge of something far more dangerous than either agent was prepared for.
"Oh, so the bald professor makes a pilgrimage and suddenly I'm one of his flock? How charmingly amateur."
Coulson shifted in place. Hill, however, pressed forward.
"This can go two ways," she said, dropping all pretense. "You come with us now, cooperate. Or we bring this to the next level. You will be taken by force."
Markus rose from his seat, not with haste or aggression, but with the refined composure of a monarch rising.
"I see," he said, voice like still water beneath ice. "Then, by all means… call your next level."
He opened his arms in a gesture of welcome, the smile on his face calm and utterly without mercy.
What they didn't see, couldn't see was that in the moment Hill uttered her threat, Markus had already activated Omniscient Awareness and Subjugation, triggered a cascade. A digital avalanche sweeping through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s protected servers.
Leaked documents. Black operations. Illegal detainments. Unauthorized military engagements. Covert experimentation logs. List of their spies.
All of it was in motion, being copied, transmitted, fragmented, and queued for delivery to carefully selected media outlets across the globe. Not for immediate release, but for timed detonation.
The fuse had been lit.
Turning slightly, Markus gestured to a small recessed lens embedded in the room's corner. Barely visible unless one knew where to look.
"Full audiovisual recording," he said smoothly. "Archived, I am pretty sure my attorneys will be most interested it. They will be in touch shortly."
Coulson said nothing. Hill's jaw tightened, but even she now understood the miscalculation.
Neither agent waited for dismissal.
They simply stood.
And left.
When the suite door clicked shut behind them, Markus exhaled softly, the smile on his face fading into something far colder.
He turned to Onyx, who stood silent and still at his side.
"Organize the releases," he said, "I want S.H.I.E.L.D. to bleed."
Within minutes of Coulson and Hill leaving the suite, the first wave of SHIELD's classified black operations began leaking to international news networks. Not in whispers or shadowy backchannels, but in full blown broadcasts with document scans, mission logs, satellite imagery, and signed testimonies.
CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and dozens more aired segment after segment:
"American Agency Orchestrates Regime Changes Abroad"
"Black Site Torture Operations Tied to SHIELD"
"Illegal Mutant Experiments Conducted Without Oversight"
By morning, every major nation had issued statements of outrage. French President called an emergency EU summit. British Parliament summoned the US ambassador for a public inquiry. Russia and China demanded full declassification of SHIELD's operations across Eurasia. UN Security Council entered emergency session.
United States faced an international firestorm. Diplomats scrambled. Embassies fortified. Phones rang off the hook.
In Washington, SHIELD's Triskelion headquarters became a war zone of bureaucratic chaos. Phones never stopped ringing. Lines of communication were jammed. Entire floors were converted into crisis response cells.
Nick Fury stood at the center of it all, jaw clenched, phone pressed to his ear while three more lines rang nonstop behind him. Staff moved in and out of his office like ants in a kicked nest.
"I don't care if he's the Prime Minister of Canada," Fury growled into the phone. "Tell him I'm not issuing a goddamn public apology during an active investigation."
Another agent handed him a thick manila folder, updates from the Pentagon. Fury barely glanced before tossing it onto the already paper strewn table.
Maria Hill and Phil Coulson entered, looking grim, but before either could speak, Fury raised his hand.
"Not now," he snapped. "Unless the building's on fire or we just got nuked, I don't want to hear it."
"Director" Hill began.
"Out. I said out." His voice cracked like a whip.
They left without another word. Outside the office, they exchanged looks. Neither spoke. There was nothing to say.
The crisis rolled on for days.
Protests erupted in front of SHIELD connected facilities. Journalists besieged every unveiled agent's address. Congress began preparing hearings. A bipartisan committee demanded immediate access to SHIELD's financial and operational records.
It wasn't just a scandal. It was a collapse of credibility.
One week later, as the situation began to stabilize slightly, another blow landed.
SHIELD's legal office received a courier envelope, thick, sealed and notarized. The sender was a firm with offices in New York, London, Berlin, and Tokyo.
Attached: lawsuits.
Filed simultaneously in multiple jurisdictions, both local and international, the suits named SHIELD and the United States government as defendants. The charges? Unlawful surveillance, coercion, attempted blackmail, and threats against an American citizen: Markus Tenebris.
Each document was precise. Lethal in its wording. Evidence had been timestamped, authenticated, and validated through publicly available systems.
The included witness list even named Agents Hill and Coulson.
When Fury received the report, he stared at it in silence.
Hill and Coulson stood across from his desk once again, this time not offering excuses. Only a report.
Fury exhaled. "So... this was his response, filing lawsuits"
Neither agent replied.
"I told you to remind him that we know," Fury roared. "Not outright threaten him. Now we've got lawsuits crawling out of every corner, every foreign desk breathing down our necks, and our credibility rating is lower than the DMV."
He turned to the window, the city beyond bathed in sunset.
"And I still don't know if he is a mutant or not."
Markus watched the world burn with a smile.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was bleeding.
In the days following the international leak, dozens of covert operations had been dismantled. Embassies across Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America were in uproar. Foreign governments some allies, some enemies publicly denounced the U.S. for illegal espionage, covert sabotage, and even assassinations on foreign soil. Diplomatic envoys were recalled. Defense pacts were suspended. Intelligence alliances were terminated or paused. Sanctions loomed.
Over three hundred field agents were detained. Of those, one hundred and twenty two had already been sentenced under military law in their respective nations. Fifty five faced death penalties for espionage, treason, and war crimes.
Financially, the damage spiraled past 500 billion dollars within the first week. American companies lost contracts. Economic sanctions triggered cascading market crashes in niche sectors. Lawsuits flooded Washington from every direction.
Markus reclined in a leather chair in his suite, sipping his coffee as Onyx read the latest report.
"The legal hearing is confirmed, sir," she said with quiet satisfaction. "10 a.m., Eastern District Federal Courthouse. You've been summoned."
"And the international court?"
"Hearing scheduled in The Hague, forty-five days from now. But until then..." she tapped her sleek tablet, "...the U.S. is drowning. And you are very much the storm."
Markus chuckled softly. "A helpful storm, if only they could see it."
In the background, news anchors argued on split screens. American correspondents fumbled over the exposed documents. European networks aired footage of handcuffed agents. Al Jazeera had an exclusive on U.S. spy interference in sovereign courts. RT was openly celebrating.
Through it all, Markus remained untouched.
And busy.
With Onyx guiding market movements and exploiting the crumbling economic confidence, Markus had turned the chaos into gold. Literally. Within this week alone, his liquid assets had tripled. Eden Armaments was projected to outpace most of it's competitors within the fiscal year. And while world leaders fought scandals, Markus had begun mass production of next generation arms.
Today, though, was not a day for weapons.
It was a day for law.
The sun shone bright over the Eastern District Courthouse in Brooklyn. News vans, flashing cameras, police cordons, and a crowd of curious onlookers packed the sidewalk.
A black limousine pulled up in front of the building. The door opened.
Markus stepped out.
A storm in a suit.
Two and a half meters tall, sculpted like a marble colossus and dressed in an impeccable three piece suit in charcoal colors, he drew attention like a black hole draws light. Onyx followed beside him, cool and poised.
The crowd erupted. Reporters surged forward, held at bay by police and suited security. Dozens of microphones stretched toward him, voices overlapping in desperate waves.
"Mr. Tenebris, how do you feel being threated by the S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
"How would you respond the accusation of being a mutant?"
"Are you planning to stop working with government?"
But one question rose above the rest. Repeated. Insistent.
"Mr. Tenebris, are you a mutant?"
Markus stopped.
He turned, slowly, to face the crowd.
A small framed female reporter near the front flinched as his gaze fell upon her. She held the microphone with both hands, her voice slightly trembling.
"Sir, are you... are you a mutant?"
Markus smiled, clam and charming.
He bent slightly toward the mic. At that angle, he towered above her, like a lion lowering its head to have a bite.
"No," he said, voice calm and cold. "I am not what you call a mutant. Nor am I a so called 'homo superior,' or 'enhanced,' or any of the many boxes public likes to draw for those it cannot understand."
He straightened, eyes sweeping the cameras like a war god dressed for Wall Street.
"I am a simple man. A citizen. A free American, born under the promise that my government would serve and protect me, not threaten and incriminate me in the shadows for existing outside their control."
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Cameras zoomed. Phones clicked photos faster than hearts beat.
Without another word, Markus turned and ascended the courthouse steps, Onyx gliding silently beside him.
He pushed them open with one hand.
And entered.
The Trial will begin shortly and Markus will make sure they'll regret the moment their neurons started the chain reaction of the idea of threatening him.