The world had barely begun to breathe again after the Convergence.
Rifts had split reality across the Earth, pulling unknown beings into the universe.
Some came peacefully.
Others… that had yet to be seen.
Thanks to Gaia's hidden hand and the silent aid of Storm, the Earth's wounds were healed quickly, unnoticed by most.
But the echoes of what had slipped through would shape the future.
Arden felt the Convergence like a ripple across his mind. Yet it left no scar on him, he remained whole.
Wanting distance from the chaos, he sought an old connection. Matt Murdock.
Introduced long ago by Auggie during the Battle of New York, they had fought side-by-side against the Chitauri, Matt's enhanced senses aiding Earth's defenders.
In the weeks after the Convergence, they met again.
It was during their quiet investigation that they first crossed paths with Halo.
Halo a white-haired, green-streaked young man with silver eyes had slipped into this world during the Convergence.
An unstable existence, he moved through New York's back alleys like a ghost, his very presence felt off like it was concrete waiting to dry.
He wasn't from here. He didn't know exactly what he was yet.
But he was alive, and drawn toward others like him.
Arden, Matt, and Halo formed an unlikely trio, combing through the rumors that circled like smoke rumors of strange creatures, mutations, and above all, a serum. X-ST.
A creation born of the of some mad scientists.
A substance said to awaken impossible the X- gene .
Their search led them from New York to Boston and back, but no matter how many trails they followed, they kept finding dead ends.
Until Tony Stark entered the picture.
He wasn't looking to help.
He wasn't looking for answers.
He was looking for power.
Tony had been restless since the Battle of New York.
The suits, the tech, the endless armor none of it felt like enough anymore.
He wanted something more.
Something inside him whispered that he could not protect the world from the coming storms unless he evolved.
When he learned of the X-ST Serum, he saw opportunity.
He didn't share the information with the Avengers.
He didn't warn SHIELD.
He took the serum for himself and he paid the price.
The X-ST was more of a lottery pole than anything because X Gene was completely unique and there was no telling what power he would awaken.
Tony, knowingly or not, sacrificed the thing he treasured most: his mind.
In its place, his body became a weapon.
Scarlet feathers burst from his flesh. Wings, strong enough to tear through steel, unfurled from his back. His hands twisted into talons.
His face became a Hawk's cruel visage a golden-eyed beast that remembered nothing of its humanity.
Tony Stark was gone.
The Red Hawk had risen.
A thundering explosion that shook the city and sent a storm of glass and steel into the streets below.
Arden, Matt, and Halo arrived too late to stop it but not too late to see the creature rising from the wreckage. That's the rescued as many people as they could from the falling debris.
The Red Hawk roared, an ear-splitting cry of rage and confusion.
He attacked without hesitation.
Arden slowed time, slipping between seconds like a blade but the Red Hawk's sheer force let him keep up barely. Which made Arden's job significantly harder.
Matt struck with enhanced speed and precision, but even his best blows barely made the beast stumble.
Halo tried to phase-shift out of reach, unleashing kinetic blasts from the unstable energy rippling through him, but they ricocheted harmlessly off Red Hawk's swirling barriers of wind and sound.
They were losing.
Badly.
And Red Hawk Tony showed no signs of stopping.
In the chaos, another figure watched.
Mortal the ancient traveler from another world had observed all from the edge of a distant building.
He saw the serum's mutation for what it was: a crude echo of what true evolution could be.
He saw opportunity his creation flawed.
If the Red Hawk wasn't stopped, thousands would die before morning.
Yet Mortal wasn't a hero not in any traditional sense.
He moved for progress, for the survival of greater possibilities.
He approached Halo, offering him a choice:
Use of X-ST. Evolve to Fight.
But it would cost him.
Halo accepted without hesitation.
The serum struck like wildfire through his unstable form. But unlike Tony, Halo had nothing to sacrifice he was a foreigner.
Instead, he lost his anchor to reality.
Halo could slip between alternate versions of the present moment not just dodge attacks, but exist in multiple timelines simultaneously.
A living glitch.
Unpredictable. Dangerous. Unstoppable if only for a short time.
With his new abilities, Halo blurred forward, phasing in and out of reality, confusing Red Hawk's senses.
Blows that would have shattered bones passed harmlessly through shimmering echoes.
Arden, adapting fast, synchronized his slowed time with Halo's shifting patterns, creating moments where reality bent against Red Hawk's brute force.
Matt, battered but undeterred, used his flaw detection to find the one constant the rhythm of Red Hawk's mutated heart.
He fought not the monster's strength, but its heartbeat, striking with precision to destabilize its breathing, its balance.
For the first time, Red Hawk faltered.
Mortal observed the battlefield not fighting, but watching.
He used his power multiplicative quotient two enhance Tony's mind around Red Hawk, forcing Tony's mind to flicker moments of memory sparking in the beast's golden eyes.
Tony's old self the man, not the monster struggled for a breath of control.
Arden reached for him across that fading connection, slowing his own body to a crawl so that one moment could stretch into the necessary time.
" Tony you're better than this, I know you're better than this" Arden whispered, his voice threading through the broken mind. "Don't let it fall."
Red Hawk shuddered.
For a terrible moment, it seemed as if he might snap entirely.
But then the wings crumpled.
The Hawk's face twisted into something half-human, half-beast before finally becoming human again.
Tony Stark, broken and battered, collapsed to the ground, the transformation slowly unwinding itself.
He would never be the same.
But he would live.
Halo, breathing heavily, stood beside Arden and Matt.
The boy who had not belonged to this world had found a place in it even if he would forever dance on the edge of existence.
Tony was taken into custody not by SHIELD, but by those who understood what he had become.
Thanks to X-ST Tony would forever wants more knowledge so that he could exchange it for even more power so cycle that would be called a curse began.
Mortal vanished, unseen but ever present.
The city held its breath, wounded but standing.
The world had changed again.