From a swirling, multicolored portal, Nova stepped out and glanced at the wall-mounted calendar. He let out a quiet sigh.
A necessary sacrifice, he thought.
The System had its restrictions—particularly when it came to temporal manipulation across dimensions.
While Nova had previously maintained a time dilation ratio between the Marvel and Harry Potter worlds (allowing him to train or build in one while barely any time passed in the other), the System didn't permit layered or stacked distortions between two existing timelines for extended seclusion.
It considered that a loophole—one that risked timeline instability, and more critically, interdimensional desync.
So, before entering his Sanctum Vault for an intense training and project phase, Nova had been forced to remove the time difference. From that moment on, both worlds ran in synchronized time, one second for one second.
According to the Harry Potter world's calendar, sixty-four days had passed.
But inside the Vault—thanks to its compressed time field, a feature permitted within a single world—Nova had experienced five full years. Five years of uninterrupted research, crafting, and refinement.
Now, stepping back into the Marvel world, he had been gone exactly sixty-four days — just over two months.
Which was very troublesome.
Because this was Marvel.
Here, two hours was enough for an alien invasion or a new species to emerge from the ocean floor. Sixty-four days might as well be a decade.
Just take his last trip to the Black Clover world. When he came back, he found the Mutant Department had appeared like a mushroom in radioactive rain — fully formed, publicly endorsed, and legally unstoppable.
So now Nova was genuinely concerned. What if another world-shaking — no, timeline-shaking — event had happened while he was gone?
What if he'd missed another foundational rewrite of history? Another silent revolution? Another civil war wrapped in legislation?
He'd have nowhere to go and cry.
After all, he still hadn't dealt with the last timeline-altering disaster: registering himself as a mutant.
Grimacing, Nova opened his laptop and connected to the network. Notifications exploded like fireworks — dozens of messages from his friends, Helios briefings, and nearly 300 personal emails.
With a deep breath and a flick of his fingers, he activated Smart Filter Mode, dumping all minor pings and sorting by geo-political priority.
---
[HELIOS NEWS SCAN – PAST 60 DAYS: DIGEST MODE ENABLED]
> 📰 X-MEN UNIFORMS GO FEDERAL: Special Response Unit Launches Officially
The newly sanctioned X-Men squad debuted their updated uniforms this month during a televised mutant extraction mission in Philadelphia. Their gear now includes Department insignias, tactical comm-links, and integrated ID tags — much to the discomfort of older members like Logan. Cyclops, now officially listed as "Field Commander," addressed reporters with the grace of a caffeine-deprived schoolteacher.
---
> 📰 NEW "M-METRO" POLICE DIVISION ROLLED OUT IN MAJOR CITIES
Cities like Chicago, Boston, and Seattle launched mixed patrols — standard police partnered with one or more registered mutant officers. Known publicly as "M-Metro Units," they're being trained in joint tactical responses, especially in high-mutation-potential zones. Civil liberty groups are... not thrilled.
---
> 📰 PRIVATE SECTOR BOOM: MUTANT SECURITY HITS MAINSTREAM
After the sudden disappearance of Tony Stark in Afghanistan, several CEOs and government officials have quietly hired licensed mutant bodyguards and defense contractors. The most prominent is Silverhold Solutions, now valued at 1.2 billion dollars — its ranks include two telekinetics, one human lie detector, and a man who can literally become smoke.
---
> 📰 MASSACHUSETTS ACADEMY WELCOMES FIRST PUBLIC COHORT
The Hellfire-backed school just opened doors to its inaugural class — 372 students enrolled, with Emma Frost herself conducting orientation. Unsurprisingly, the student handbook includes a full dress code, a dueling code, and a one-line school motto: "Power is Meant to Be Wielded."
---
> 📰 MUTANT ENTREPRENEURS SURGE UNDER DEPARTMENT LICENSING
Over 15,000 registered mutants have filed for startup licenses, leading to what economists now call "The Quirk Economy." A man in Nevada built a power plant using bio-electric skin. A woman in Delhi is using chromatic pheromones to run an entire ad agency. There's even a floating mutant food truck called "Hot Dawg Teleports."
---
> 📰 CHARLES XAVIER ADDRESSES UNITED NATIONS
In a viral speech titled "We're Not Waiting to Be Saved", Xavier called for global adoption of the mutant rights model pioneered by the Department. He ended with a simple line that trended worldwide:
"We've spent too long surviving. Now we're building."
---
> 📰 UNDERGROUND BUZZ: "COLLAR LAWS" COMING SOON?
Anonymous sources claim the Department is drafting legislation to require temporary inhibitor collars for unstable, unlicensed adult mutants. The MOC has issued no comment. Protests are already brewing.
---
Nova's eyes narrowed slightly at that last one but he sighed in relief.
" Thank god," he muttered.
The world hadn't exploded this time. But it had definitely shifted — tilted into a more structured, surveilled, corporatized version of itself.
Where powers came with permits where entire industries now ran on controlled mutation, where students were trained in soft politics and hard compliance and where people like him — powerful, off-grid, and unlicensed — were walking violations just waiting for the right memo to become fugitives.
He leaned back in his chair, the glow of the screen flickering across his face.
"So… mutants are now professionals, cops, CEOs... and still one bad headline away from being livestock."
His fingers drummed against the desk, a low rhythmic tap, as his gaze drifted to a different headline — one quietly glowing at the edge of the news archive:
---
[BREAKING NEWS: TWO MONTHS SINCE STARK DISAPPEARANCE — STILL NO TRACE]
> It has now been sixty-three days since Tony Stark — CEO of Stark Industries — vanished during a routine overseas visit to Afghanistan. Official statements confirm his convoy was attacked approximately 32 miles outside Kabul. While several members of his escort detail were confirmed dead at the scene, Stark himself was not found among the wreckage.
The military has denied involvement in the original route planning, citing Stark's independence in corporate matters. Intelligence agencies have since launched an international manhunt, aided by satellite sweeps and regional sweeper drones, but all known leads have thus far led to dead ends.
Stark's personal aircraft remains grounded in Dubai. His last known communication was a three-minute secure call routed through a StarkSat uplink, ending abruptly with signal distortion and ambient explosion noise.
Speculation continues to swirl across media channels — ranging from extremist involvement, corporate sabotage, to alien abduction (courtesy of tabloid networks).
In a public statement released earlier today, Pepper Potts, acting executive secretary and public face of Stark Industries during Stark's absence, posted a $100 million dollar private reward for "credible information leading to Tony Stark's safe return."
"We're not giving up hope. Not today. Not ever," Potts stated during the press conference, her voice unwavering. "And we're willing to match hope with action."
Stark Industries stocks continue to fluctuate following the announcement.
---
Nova continued drumming the desk with his fingers.
So it's finally the moment, huh?
The curtain had already been pulled open with the rise of the Mutant Department — laws, licenses, oversight councils — the world no longer pretending powers didn't exist. But even that didn't compare to this.
Tony Stark.
The man who kickstarted everything in his old life. The one who stood in front of the world and said: "I am Iron Man."
That line wasn't just iconic — it was catalytic.
In MCU timeline, that moment marked the true beginning. The age of superheroes, public and undeniable. A world reshaped by powered individuals and begining of choas.
But Nova was really curious about something. Let's not talk about the MCU timeline — in this AU timeline, there were mutants. People with varied superpowers, many of them incredibly specialized.
People with enhanced perception, supernatural tracking, psychometry, clairvoyance, even outright precognition. Some could sniff out memories from old walls. Others could follow a heartbeat across miles.
He was pretty sure that someone with a tracking-based mutation could have found Stark easily.
After all, a hundred million dollars wasn't a small amount. It was the kind of reward that made even underground mutant brokers come crawling out of hiding. He was almost certain that Pepper Potts have requested help from the X-Men, or even pushed an official request through the Mutant Department.
And then there was Charles Xavier.
Cerebro's primary function was to locate mutants by amplifying Charles' already-immense telepathy — giving him a global range. But the machine was still a conduit. With or without Cerebro, Charles was arguably the most powerful telepath on the planet.
Nova had no doubt: if Charles focused and used Cerebro, he could sift through surface-level thoughts across continents, detect clusters of foreign languages in isolated areas, or even sense distress and pain if he attuned himself to it.
And the ones who kidnapped Tony Stark? In MCU timeline, he was kidnapped by just ordinary human terrorists. No magical shielding. No psionic cloaking. No tech advanced enough to mask a mind from Xavier's mental net.
Which begged the question — the one Nova couldn't shake: Why hasn't anyone found him yet?
x------x
CHAPTER's:- {70-75 GWEN STACY [R-18(I-IV)} ARE AVAILABLE ON MY P@TREON.
https://www.patreon.com/Ghost_0007?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator