When Tony said he wanted to tag along with Skyl and explore the universe, Skyl couldn't help staring at him.
"If you leave Earth, who's supposed to run Stark Industries?"
"Obadiah, obviously. My uncle. You know him."
Skyl arched a brow in surprise. It looked like Obadiah still hadn't shown his true colors, and Tony still trusted him completely.
Tony narrowed his eyes. "You seem to dislike that name."
"I've merely divined that the two of you will eventually split. My divinations are usually accurate. You should be careful not to get bitten by Obadiah. The snake coiled closest to you is often the most venomous."
"So you think Obadiah's bad news too?"
"Who besides me thinks Obadiah has ulterior motives?"
"My assistant." Tony took an uneasy sip of bitter black coffee. "She insists Obadiah was behind my kidnapping, but she can't prove it. Things got pretty ugly between us because of it."
Skyl lifted his cup, gave it a cautious sniff, and quietly set it back down. Civet coffee. Good grief. One whiff was enough.
"If Miss Pepper Potts is not the sort to chase fame or fortune, then her suspicions are not coming from nowhere. You should investigate Obadiah privately."
Tony nodded thoughtfully. "I'm planning to go settle things with the terrorists who kidnapped me. If my uncle's connected to them, something's bound to slip. Want to come? I even had a suit prepared for you."
Skyl glanced at the sky outside. "I'll pass. I need to head back to New York and take care of something. If all goes well, once I've revived Galactus, I can swing back here and wait for the ship to be finished."
On the couch, Gali snapped her head around. "Revive who?" She stared blankly at him.
"Uh... your father." Only then did Skyl remember that Gali had absolutely no idea what had happened. During their time in Asgard, everyone had been so busy eating, drinking, and having fun that nobody had ever mentioned Galactus's fate. Gali had apparently assumed her father had simply been driven off.
"My dad is dead?!"
She let out a scream. The burst of energy leaking from her in her agitation blew the living room to pieces. Every fragile object in sight exploded. Tony and Skyl dove behind the counter to avoid the flying glass.
Tony looked around at the devastation, and when he saw an entire cabinet of his treasured liquor wiped out in one go, even a man with money to burn couldn't help frowning.
Skyl flicked his hand. "Reparo."
The room looked as though time reversed itself. Everything returned to normal.
"Hey, can I learn that one?"
"Ask the Ancient One. She has a Time Stone. Get your hands on that and you can pull off tricks like this too."
Gali was sobbing on the couch while Jormungand swayed her head around, trying to cheer her mother up.
"D-did you kill him?" Gali looked at Skyl with grief written all over her face.
"No." Skyl raised both hands in surrender. "Your father knows perfectly well when to change tactics. The second he realized he couldn't beat me, he called a stop to the fight. We were practically on the verge of becoming friends. Then Jormungand saw that you were hurt and suddenly swallowed Lord Galactus in one bite."
Gali's hair practically fluffed out into a lion's mane. She grabbed Jormungand by the neck and shook her hard. "Spit your grandpa back out! Spit him out! Bad Alita!"
Jormungand mumbled pitifully, "Grandpa tasted good. Want more grandpa..."
Tony got goosebumps and almost laughed at the same time. "Skyl, is this family dynamic a little weird?"
"This is why children should never be given too much power. One little mistake and they destroy the world."
Tony snorted. "Isn't the White House a living example of that?"
Then he shook his head with a crooked smile. "All right. Looks like your problems are worse than mine, so I won't keep you here."
Skyl calmed Gali down and promised that once they got back to Stan's place, he could refill the Genesis Pen with ink and bring that spectacularly unlucky old Galactus back to life.
Gali was still pouting. "Skyl, when the time comes, lend me the pen. I'm drawing a chain and tying Alita up with it."
Jormungand rolled around in her arms begging for mercy, but there was clearly no talking her way out of this one.
Using a portal, Skyl returned to New York. Dawn still hadn't broken on the West Coast, but on the East Coast it was already close to noon.
The day was bright, and the radiance of the Erdtree shimmered overhead.
What he saw in front of him felt strangely unfamiliar.
The streets were spotless. People greeted one another when they passed. Bored police officers sat by the roadside chatting. In the square stood a huge dove-of-peace statue built out of confiscated guns. There were no pickpockets, no prostitutes, no muggers. No obnoxious street musicians, no graffiti, no flyers plastered everywhere.
On the radio, the announcer cheerfully praised the fact that over the past month, New York's crime rate had dropped to nearly zero. Not just in America, but anywhere in the world, it was being hailed as a miracle.
Schools were orderly. Churches were packed. Hospitals, businesses, and city hall had all become more humane. The police department could practically shut its doors. During an interview, Captain George Stacy, already famous nationwide for cracking major gang cases, put on a mock-troubled expression and said that his officers now had nothing to do all day except eat donuts and turn themselves into three-hundred-pound slobs.
When the reporter asked whether he saw that as a bad thing, his answer was immediate.
"Quite the opposite. I think New York has become a moral society. Officers can go out without being on edge all the time, and our families no longer have to live in fear for our safety. The relationship between civilians and police has grown closer too. Everything is moving in a better direction."
Close to lunchtime, groups of men carrying baskets were walking the streets handing out bread. They were huge, thick-necked, rough-looking brutes dressed in linen monk robes with hoods and rope sandals, like something out of a medieval abbey.
They cursed like sailors and barked at people in voices that sounded ready to start a bar fight, but they worked with absolute sincerity. They carried old ladies across busy intersections, got stolen lollipops back for grade-school kids, unclogged residents' drains, climbed rooftops to rescue stranded cats. They were like a squad of musclebound Jesuses with anger issues and hearts of gold.
At the head of them was a man built like a grizzly bear. Lots of people greeted him warmly as "Pastor Wilson."
He kept his head bowed humbly as he said to passersby, "Please, have some bread. May the Lord forgive your sins and mine."
"The Lord forgives you," people would answer if they accepted a loaf, and every time he heard those words, a little more peace appeared on his face.
When Pastor Wilson stopped in front of Skyl, the giant man lowered his head just as humbly. "Please, have some bread."
Gali and Jormungand had already reached out and taken some, tearing into it immediately.
But the pastor never heard the words, "The Lord forgives you."
Puzzled, he looked up.
The moment he saw the young wizard standing there, he was so startled he dropped backward onto the pavement, bread spilling all over the ground from his basket.
"Ah! You!"
It was Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin himself.
After some time apart, the former emperor of New York's underworld had grown much thinner. His cheeks were hollow, his beard was rough and unkempt, and he looked like a man who had barely survived a long illness. The blazing hunger for power that once burned in his eyes had dimmed, replaced by a strange sort of peace.
The monks around him immediately changed expression and shouted, "Boss!" as they surrounded Skyl. One after another, they glared at him and yelled, "Take this!"
Then they ripped off their robes to reveal slabs of muscle underneath, black and white alike, their bodies covered in tattoos. They were gangsters through and through. They began striking bodybuilding poses and roaring at the top of their lungs, throwing off an absurdly intimidating aura.
An ordinary civilian would probably have gone weak in the knees on the spot and started apologizing before a fight even began. That was the whole point.
Fisk raised a hand and stopped his humiliating subordinates. "Enough. This has nothing to do with you. Leave."
"Boss!" x99
"Hm?" Fisk's face darkened. "Didn't hear me, or are you all deaf?"
The reformed gangsters slunk away resentfully, though not before throwing Skyl a few final threatening looks.
"Long time no see, Mr. Fisk," Skyl said with a polite nod. "I'm delighted to find you safe and well."
"So the day has come sooner than I expected." Fisk calmed down, then knelt there on the street and looked up at Skyl like an enormous monk gazing at a statue of a saint. "You're here to judge me, aren't you?"
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