CHAPTER 04

After a short walk after I found the gym and I started my return journey back home, I found a gym a few blocks away from my house and a few minutes away from Charlie's which just made me glad.

Job. Check.

Hobby. Check.

So with those out of the way I came back home but I soon found out that I was bored out of my mind. There was nothing fun to do at home, no Netflix to binge watch TV shows, no video games to play, no interesting news on TV apart from the usual mutant bigotry which I wasn't going to be dipping my hands in anytime soon and hopefully never. So with nothing to do I grabbed my cell and started browsing the internet for some Marvel-centric themes like Xavier's School for The Specially Gifted which was apparently a real school, go figures.

With the knowledge and location of a school full of enhanced humans in my cell, I was tempted to just book a flight and go there just to satisfy my curiosity. Who would I see there? Charles was there no doubt but what about the others? Was Logan already there? What of Colossus, Iceman, Kitty, Scott, Ororo and the others? What type of alternate universe was I in?

 These questions plagued me and fuelled my curiosity but I snuffed it out with the reason that me going was just shooting myself in the legs…and head.

With Charles habit of snooping around them brains, him possibly finding out shit I know, it wouldn't take long for Magneto to find out.

How? Well fuck boy Charles always had a softie for Mr. Metal gear. Their relationship was hella sus. I mean your bestfriend(?) is a world known terrorist with a superiority complex who kills anyone who opposes him and yet you want to tell me you, Charles-Fucking-Xavier, couldn't stop him for more than twenty years, and not to mention the whole sus part about Eric knowing almost every fucking secrets Charles ever knew.

Charles had a lot of opportunities to brainwash the dude, and even if it was against his morals, Charles had a neat streak of going against his morals time and time again throughout the X-Men franchise.

So yeah, no Xavier for now regardless of how much I wanted to see the dude. Because after all is said and done, Xavier was an icon.

 A living legend who fought his entire life for the mutants freedom and acceptance into society. This was a man who would walk straight into eternal damnation if he was assured of the fact that his sacrifice would benefit all of mutant kind. If we were being candid, the good he did far outweighed the questionable bad he committed by a lot. But even if, I still didn't want my mind to be scanned so no for now.

After a few X-Men related searches, I realized that this place would be fucked way sooner than later and that was only counting the X-Men part, reason being Reed Richards was here. This guy really fit the MAD scientist role to a tee…. Which he was, with emphasis on mad.

With someone who can literally home-brew a cataclysmic event sharing a city with you, you bet your ass you would experience an apocalypse before Christ came.

I couldn't even bring myself to be flustered with these epic individuals around me because the real problem was the cataclysm-inviting group of people and their merryband who left the skies and chose to stay on land. I'm talking about the S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers.

They had a freaking mythical god with them, wrath incarnate, a sexy redhead and most importantly the dude who saw Skynet and said, "Cool! But I can do you one better." These guys were just walking apocalypse magnet. And these were just the good people side of the coin. The bad side…

Quitting the browser before I had an aneurysm, I contemplated going to the gym to check and sign up but I figured I could just do it tomorrow. With that I slid back into my couch and closed my eyes and just drift off to sleep.

…

I woke up minutes before 6pm, took a bath, threw in a dark blue jean trousers and a black sleeved shirt, some body spray and left the house.

I looked for an ATM machine since I was running low on change and I still didn't know how much I had in my account.

Sliding in my card and finding out I still used the same passcode, I checked my balance and found $3,000 and some change which was quite a lot considering the time. Taking out $500, I left for Charlie's.

I arrived at Charlie's 20 minutes before 7 and walked into bar which welcomed me with a full house and a slow song on the jukebox. Without much fanfare, I looked for Charlie and found him cleaning some glasses.

"You came. Well what you waitin' for? Get your ass behind the counter, I'll be witcha in a sec!" He said as soon as he saw me which made do a reverse back to the counter.

I saw the bargirl of this morning still behind the counter. Reaching her I asked for her name.

"Hey! Name's Draul, what's yours?"

"May. You Mexican or what?" She asked.

"No, but I get that a lot." Which was true. I know I didn't look Mexican nor did I speak so, but people always assumed I was.

With some casual conversation while we mixed drinks, we talked for a bit before she left around 8pm which left me alone for a while before another of Charlie's all-nighters came and we just did whatever barmen like us did; trying to guess which pockets were full and which girls to hit on. Well the later part was all Locke's, my co-barman's name.

We worked for a while before Charlie came to check in on us, or me rather. We talked for a while mostly about my pay and shifts. I opted for anytime between 4 - 10pm since I wasn't going to be giving up my sleep for anything.

Never did and never will.

We agreed on 20 per hour for how long I worked. The collective pay wasn't that much but since I didn't have any better option it'll have to do for now.

After talking with Charlie, I left the bar and headed home. Time was a little past 11pm when I got home so I just crawled into bed as soon as I was past the doors. I wasn't that tired but I just craved it at that moment.

…

[The Next Morning]

With the annoying birds at my window doing their morning rituals, I couldn't get more of the heavenly morning sleep. I just crawled out of bed, put on a tracksuit and went out for my new morning routine. I was able to do more than I did yesterday which was awesome in a way.

{10:23am}

With a cold shower and a spare pair of clothes in a bag, I left for the gym I saw yesterday.

I was able to get a membership and a workout routine laid out for me which I was really thankful for, and that was what didn't prepare me for the excruciating work that was workout. I mean it was right there in the name but I thought you just went there, lift some metals for a while and then boom! DC level muscles.

But this! This was hell. It took most of my time just to get the right posture for lifting the dumbbells and that wasn't even counting the quotas. God! This was hard.

It was only through pure determination that I managed to get through my work quota, and not wanting to look like a bitch I went back to it after resting for a while.

After working out my hours, I left the gym looking like a bear that went swimming during winter, drenched in my sweat and exhaustion but somehow I felt lighter… or maybe that was just the sense of accomplishment talking.

So with my phantom euphoric feelings, I left the gym thinking of what I was going to do today. Coming up with nothing, I just opted for taking myself out for breakfast. I could probably just whip up something good but it wouldn't be as good as a restaurant's.

Ah! My life really was looking up. Why didn't I just do this in my past life? Thinking about it now, what I was doing now wasn't that different from what I did before. Only a few differences and mentality was what set them apart.

Philosophical thoughts for later, what I need now was a bath and a nice breakfast at a nice restaurant.

So with that out of the way I went home with a plan laid out which was something I would be going by for a long time.

======

[1 Month Later]

It has being a month since I woke up in the Marvel universe and other than a few things happening, I was living pretty ok.

The first happened to me.

Two weeks after I started going to the gym, I started seeing results that even my instructor was surprised. Since the old routine didn't take that much out of me, I added some more exercises to it. Treadmills, barbells, fitness exercises and a slew of other things. My instructor was first against it but seeing as how I was able to juggle through them all he allowed me do my thing. I did get a few mass in though so that was nice.

The other thing did leave me stunned for the whole day though.

September 11th, 2001.

… Or most popularly known as 911.

To say I was shocked by this would be an unstatement. As someone who lived through TWO 911s that was a valid reaction. But while the 911 in my former world was said to be orchestrated by Islamic terrorists with Osama Bin Laden at its helm, this worlds' was different but not by much.

This was blamed on the mutants which was something that I found hard to believe. Regardless of if this was some alternate earth in the Marvel universe and Eric was a fool, this was not something a rag-tag bunch of mutants could do. So either Eric was going 'fuck the humans' or there was a new player in the mutant field.

The Hellfire club was out since their mojo was behind the scenes control and money making.

The Marauders and Meta Liberation Front too were one of the popular mutants organizations I knew but they didn't have any drive for something like this. And that was taking in the fact that they might not even be formed yet.

Both Charles and Eric wouldn't allow something like this to happen since all it would do was just increase the negativity and hatred against mutants.

Maybe Eric could because I remembered some versions of Eric that was straight up human-hate centric.

The public outrage was something my previous worlds' couldn't compare to. It was a literal witch hunt for the mutants. Countries were put in states of mass panic as they feared they would be attacked next.

Vigilance and violence was at an all time high. There were even some videos of mutants being lynched in public on the internet. It was just that bad and 911 was just last week.

I was at the gym when it happened. I had to reboot when we heard the news and ran out of the gym just to see smoke in the skies. I just stood rooted there because I knew another plane was coming. While everyone was either spectating the tragedy or making calls to loved ones in Manhattan, I stood there just waiting for the second explosion.

It didn't take an hour for the second plane to hit, signifying the biggest terrorist attack in the Country of America to date. With the Chitauri invasion, Ultron's attack on Novi Grad, Sokovia and the Universal genocide by Thanos, this attack would remain insignificant, but not yet. Not for the people living now.

With the call for mutant eradication, I wondered what the mutants strongholds would do.

While the event was tragic, it didn't get to me that much. Whether due to the fact that I was in this city during two 911 attacks or that I found it hard in me to worry about things not happening me, I didn't know. Apart from a few gym members who lost people during the attack, I couldn't bring myself to sympathize with others.

Apart from these events, everything was the same for me. I never neglected my routine, not once, even after the attack I still showed up at the gym the next day and went to Charlie's when it was time.

Other than that, I was looking forward to my first Christmas in a Marvel-verse. I wasn't that religious in my past life but I did do my best to enjoy the holidays every year. These were the only notable things that happened during my first month in Marvel.