Chapter 2

"God, this is creepy."

We're wandering through the empty, desolate streets of Hammer Bay, Genosha's capital, Ellie watching as I rapidly put the country back together. Buildings, electricity grid, sewage system, even making sure the stocks inside the stores are returned to their non-incinerated state.

I turn back towards her "You mean me doing this, or the place looking like the Rapture swept through here?"

She shrugs "Both, I guess? Sort of? It's not every day you watch your hometown literally rising from the ashes. Or that you're brought back from the dead."

"Well it might not happen EVERY day, but-"

She just sighs and shakes her head, walking over to a newsstand and picks up one of the papers, issued the day Nova's attack occured "I still can't belive how fast it all happened. It was just a normal day, even though my visions kept telling me what was going to happen. And then we all just...died. Just like that."

I double check my work, making sure I put all the parts of the city back together right before walking over to her, reading the paper over her shoulder. "Yeah, death can be really sudden, especially in this world. Look, do you need to talk or anything? I know this must be a lot to take in all at once."

She hesitates for a moment "It's not so much dying that bothers me... it's how little it all seemed to mean in the end. I mean, if you're telling the truth, then not only did no on really get punished for what happened here, things just kept getting worse for mutants and NO ONE seems to have done anything about it! What was the point of any of this?!"

Jesus, she actually looks like she's about to cry. I think about how to respond for a moment.

"Listen, I've been absolutely furious about the same things, but the hard truth is that there is only so much that can be done. In the case of Genosha, who should be punished? Cassandra Nova isn't a regular criminal you can just lock up or even kill, she's a virtually indestructible psychic parasite who just becomes a formless spirit if you kill her. I think Emma Frost has her sealed inside a synthetic brain right now. Punish the ones who made the Sentinels? Nova made those herself using leftover parts Bolivar Trask built, and he's already dead. And who should be punished for M-Day? Scarlet Witch, the mentally unstable reality warper who no one could be arsed to actually help until it got so bad the best they could come up with was euthanasia? I've made sure she's never getting her powers back, and neither will her asshole father or her brother, I think that'll have to be enough." I sigh "Now, on the topic of anti-mutant violence in general, you're completely right, and the fact that the X-Men never did anything about it other than stomping out obvious fires is a coffin full of horseshit." And the less said about mutant support from other heroes, the better, because seriously, what the fuck Avengers?

Ellie blinks in surprise at my outburst "I don't think I've heard that last expression before."

"You like it? I stole it from a webcomic in another reality!"

"That's..." She just turns around and begins walking up the street "Let's just get back to work."

.....

Around noon, I suggest we take a break and head back to the beach for an impromptu picnic lunch. Since Ellie doesn't express any particular preference for anything, I end up going with my own and literally pop over to the U.S for some McDonald's. I could of course just conjure food out of thin air if I wanted to but it feels weird to eat things I've made from nothing, because apparently you still have neurosis even with godlike powers. Ellie just stares at me as I pop back to the beach, sitting on the blanket I folded out for her in the sand.

"You're probably the strongest mutant in existance... and you use your powers to do fast food runs?" She doesn't seem to mind too much, since she still eagerly digs into her food.

I shrug as I open up my container of McNuggets "Considering what reality warpers usually do with their powers, I think I'm being pretty responsible with mine."

She stops eating "Usually? How many others are there?"

"Right now?" I have to think about it "Uh, I think it's just Enfant Terrible, Impossible Man and Molecule Man. The first two are aliens, and the third is so passive he barely even uses his powers. Just be glad Proteus and Jim Jaspers aren't around anymore, those guys are dicks." I'm honestly glad the current Jim Jaspers is a baseline human, because his former incarnation actually outpowered even me. I even made sure to check that Sir Jim Jaspers was just a regular douchy politician and not a monstrously powerful mutant who was slowly going insane from his own powers.

She doesn't seem to know if I'm being serious or not. I shrug. "Superpowers are pretty much bullshit. Mutants tend to get the worst of it." Memories of the Special Ed class from Grant Morrissons run pop into my head. Poor bastards.

Shit, I just realized that turning the X-Gene back on like I did means I gave powers back to a bunch of people who were really glad theirs were gone, especially Beak. I'll have to fix that if I get the chance.

We continue eating, until Ellie asks "Why are you doing all of this? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that you want to do it at all, but why Genosha? Are you going to go around resurrecting every victim of anti-mutant violence? Or just victims of genocide?"

Good question. "No, I don't think so anyway. I chose to fix Genosha because it, along with M-Day, is one of the single greatest crimes ever perpetrated against mutants, in a history that's already full of atrocities. But I'm not a god and I'm not interested in running around fixing the whole world."

"So you don't want to be a...superhero? With powers like yours, most people would jump at the chance."

"Not really. I honestly haven't decided what to do after I'm done here, but I don't think I'm going to put on spandex and a cape. First of all, I want to make sure what I've done here lasts, then... I'll have to think about my next move."

We finish our meal in silence.

....

We're standing on top of the skyscraper where I stood when I began this project, except rather than the burned out hulk it was then, it has now been restored to it's former glory, as has the rest of Hammer Bay far below us. Ellie watches apprehensively as I move the last few bones back into the city, making sure to place them somewhere safe either outside or inside somewhere. On a whim, I also move the memorial statue the Brotherhood made out of one of the Sentinels away from the city, leaving it on a platform I made out at sea. The Genoshans can decide what to do with the damn thing themselves.

No sense in procrastinating on this. I turn towards Ellie and nods "I think Genosha is as fixed as it's going to get. You ready?"

She nods and looks out over the cityscape in anticipation.

I close my eyes...and focus.

...

"Director Stark, I can assure you that, whatever our personal feelings on the matter, neither myself nor any of my X-Men have anything to do with the Regenesis event."

Tony Stark stared across his desk at his current appointment, Professor Charles Xavier, who was currently dashing his hopes that there'd be an easy answer for the current crisis they were facing, because why would things ever be easy? Xavier just gave that infuriating bland smile he always used whenever he felt someone was being irrational. Stark glanced up at Summers, standing behind Xavier and holding on to his wheelchair, but even without those sunglasses of his, he'd still be hard to read. "Professor Xavier, with all due respect, are you telling me that you, the single biggest expert on mutants today, seriously have no idea how millions of mutants just got all their powers back despite everything pointing to them being gone permanently?"

"Director, I'm afraid you're making the common mistake of assuming that expertise in one field equals expertise in ALL of them. I'm an expert at mutation, yes, but not every single aspect of it, nor are any of my students and associates, competent as they may be. If we were, this Regenesis would not have taken this long to manifest."

Stark sighed "So you're just as much in the dark as everyone else then?"

"I'm afraid so. 12 hours ago, every dormant X-Gene on record simultaneously reactivated with no seeming catalyst. Together with Emma Frost, I've begun researching the phenomenon using Cerebro, but we have found no trace of anything other than the reawakened mutants."

Stark rubbed his hands over his face tiredly "Goddamnit all, this could not have come at a worse time. We've only barely managed to stabilize things after the Civil War, now we have millions of unregistered AND untrained metahumans running around, and because the SRA was written to exclude them, we currently have no legal framework for dealing with them."

Summers scoffed "So sorry the rebirth of our entire race is such an inconvenience for you, Stark."

"Scott-" Xavier began but Stark cut him off.

"Don't play dumb, Summers, you know damn well why this is a problem, the SRA was created for a reason! People are SCARED, they're tired of living in fear of superhumans, and just when it looks like we're getting control of the situation, suddenly mutants make a resurgence at the worst possible time. I've already got senators barking at me to try and get Operation Zero Tolerance back up and running again, and it hasn't even been a day yet!"

Xavier stared at him in horror "Director, you cannot possibly be thinking of accepting that demand!"

"I certainly don't but if things get bad enough, I'll be out on my ear, and then they'll put Gyrich or some other goverment toadie in charge, and there'll be Sentinels on every street corner before you can blink! I'm under enormous pressure and I can't just do whatever I want here, I need help restoring order and putting down riots, and I want your X-Men to help."

Xavier leaned back in his chair "Very well, Director. I'll have my X-Men assist your SHIELD troops with keeping the peace for the sake of human lives, but I warn you, neither me nor my students will stand for any attempt at unlawfully imprisoning or otherwise detaining these reawakened mutants. No matter what your goverment employers might feel on the matter, this is the world as it's supposed to be."

Stark watched Summers wheel out the professor, the door sliding shut behind them, before he leaned forward, resting his arms on his desk as he began flipping through the latest batch of panicked and "urgent" emails on his computer. Gyrich was demanding to be allowed to put the Initiative cadettes into action to help restore order in New York, fat chance in hell, the last thing they needed was another Stamford. Reed apparently hadn't had any more luck than anyone else figuring out where the Regenesis came from. Atleast Danvers had some good news, she and her team had managed to quell clash between mutants and anti-mutant protesters with no fatalities or serious injuries.

Stark stood from his desk and walked over to the window overlooking the ocean. He could see New York's skyline in the distance, it looked strangely calm from this far away, despite the chaos erupting on the streets. He couldn't help but remember happier times, before the damn SRA, before Stamford, before Wanda lost her mind. Before Steve. Sure, things could get dangerous back in the old days, but is this all it was going to be like now? Just blindly stumbling from one disaster to the next with no chance at rebuilding, just barely keeping the whole house of cards from falling down? Kang destroying Washington hadn't been as bad as the past year had been.

God he wanted a drink more than ever.

His thoughts were interupted at the sound of the door sliding open, and he turned in time to meet a stressed-looking Maria Hill rushing into his office. "Hill? What's going on, you look like you just saw a ghost."

Hill handed him a file "Not too far from the truth, Director. Something's just happened on Genosha!"

Stark read the report, his eyes widening "Hill, how the hell did Fury do this job for so long without blowing his brains out from stress?"

"I belive he attributed it to stubborness, drinking and growing up in Hell's Kitchen. You're probably better off sticking to the first one, sir."

Stark sighed "Just... let's just figure out how the hell we're going to spin this to the media"