Chapter 121: Gods, Hope and Ash. (Volume 6 Prologue)

Once upon a time, there were two….

Two ideas….

Two people…

Two mutants…

More.

One was a man. Born weak in body and fearful in mind, during a time when both could get you killed for pocket change. For free, even. He lived in his manor at the mercy of his mother and house aids. Unknowingly surrounded by cubs that would one day grow into sabertoothed beasts. Unknowingly, he was of their ilk….

A shared shift in genes.

A mutation that turned him from a boy, to a man, to a mutant….

To more.

He lived long. He fought hard. He inspired and fathered many.

Like a god of war, he descended on battlefields and changed its pace as if it were a physical element at his command. Heroes, villains and gods acted in his name. Against him. For him. With him.

More.

But, even the sun must set.

And as this star of war fell, another was born. His energies transferred. His ideas immortalized in the amniotic waves of newborn dreams. Of life made again with another. Not through love and passion, but circumstance. Understanding. Mutual respect and sorrow. Sorrow at the idea of love being possible in another time. Within them both, it burned like wild-fire. It burned like the life….

Within the other….

One was man— a god of war. The other was a woman. Born strong. Silent. Peaceful. Then the thunders of misfortune came rumbling. From the rubble of catastrophe, she survived. She lived a life of struggle, no longer a young girl— but a person, trying to survive. She stole and connived and played for her share until her share was deemed too much by her thieving brethren. When the thunder came again, it was at her behest. Once an idea, then a child— a person.

Reborn, as a mutant.

Then she became more— a goddess. She replenished deserts and fed the hungry. Those below held prayer and her powers magnified to the point that even stars felt like mere lamplight on her dark skin.

Once upon a time, there was a god of war and a goddess of the elements….

Then there was the spark. The culmination of ideas. The unification of feral rage and holy empowerment. Energies transferred and reinvented. The nexus event to a biochemical reaction that would one day shake entire dimensions.

The spark was born like his father. Weak, frail and at the mercy of others.

And lived like his mother. Betrayed by his own blood. Saved by nature.

But a new story awaited. One untethered by repeated history as a new Hope breached the timeline and an old evil was extinguished from the current.

Not without effort. Not without failure. Not without consequence. Not without death.

The shadows of nuclear warfare loomed.

Ageless titans fell. Heroes died.

A Mutant skirmish left entire chunks of Russia in ash and dust.

A moon lay shaken.

A world lied in wait.

The feral spark— the StormWolf, faced the world anew with the beast of unknowing in his wake and the hope of rebirth ahead…..

But how far ahead? Time burned.

It always burned.

When would it all be ash?