Chapter 70: Cosmic Radiation Cloud

Flying through the clouds, I exited from above and continued flying higher, not stopping for nothing; eventually, I could feel the air get thinner, and breathing became much harder, but it really didn't make a difference to me; I didn't need to breathe in the first place. Continuing to fly higher, I felt the pull of gravity weaken, which only spurred me on as I pushed harder, and before I knew it, the air had become so thin that breathing was impossible.

Leaving the atmosphere, I floated in the sky alongside the numerous satellites as I looked around; being so far away from Earth was a little scary; if I'm being honest, though I felt so free, it was terrific. However, I wasn't done yet; I now needed to find an old, broken-down satellite, so I followed the predetermined orbit paths of the satellites I could see, hoping to find one, though while my search quickly proved unsuccessful, much farther away, I spotted what looked to be a space shuttle.

Now, while such a thing looked fantastic, I wouldn't have bothered much with that space shuttle; however, not too far away, I noticed what looked to be a cloud of gas heading right for that shuttle. If it were empty, I would ignore it, but unfortunately, it wasn't, as I could see four people inside the shuttle moving about, and from how rapidly they were moving, it seemed like they must've spotted the approaching cloud of gas.

'Dammit, I just want to enjoy myself. But there's always something happening.' Thought Pharaoh with a grunt of annoyance as he left the satellites alone and flew straight for the space shuttle, a few thousand miles away.

Despite pushing myself to go even faster than when I was on Earth, the gas cloud reached them first as it enveloped the entire space shuttle, hindering my vision, yet I could still make out the astronaut's figures, granted it was blurry; speaking of figures, the woman had quite the nice one, though I can think about that later. Although hesitant, I entered the cloud of gas, and in doing so, I felt my strength increasing much faster than usual; while it felt nice, I paid more heed to help those four, who were getting bombarded with intense gamma radiation, something the human body simply can't handle.

'Good thing we're in space.' Thought Pharaoh lightly as he pressed his hands against the side of the space shuttle and started pushing, moving it out of the cloud of gas.

Since there was no form of resistance in space, I didn't need to cover the space shuttle in my aura, which made it much easier for me; though I was obviously still gentle, I didn't want to puncture a hole and cause the four to suffocate. Once the space shuttle was fully out of the cloud of gas, I turned around and looked at the cloud, which was continuing to head to Earth. Not like I was about to just watch it; that cloud was so potent in gamma radiation that if it reached Earth, it would create a massive hole in the ozone layer, and while I don't need to breathe, every living thing on Earth needs to.

'Fuck, hopes this works.' Thought Pharaoh as he flew back into the cloud of gas.

Exhaling whatever air I still had in my lungs, just like what I did with Pyro's fire two years ago, I tried sucking up the cloud of gas, which did work, but my god, did it taste utterly terrible. What made this terrible was the fact the cloud was very large, bigger than most buildings, so it took a while to suck everything up; the only good thing about this was the fact I was getting stronger quicker than usual, though that part was easily overlooked, I mean, I have yet to come into contact with someone even close to my strength, so I really did not need for it.

Once I sucked up the last bits of the cloud, I made sure I was farther away from Earth before breathing it back out and blowing it in the opposite direction of Earth, which was terrible since it gave me the feeling of vomiting.

'Ugh, I never want to do that again, that shit tasted terrible.' Thought Pharaoh as he watched the gas cloud fly away while rubbing his tongue with his hand, trying to remove the taste of gamma radiation.

Anyway, now that the Earth wasn't in any more danger, I headed back toward that space shuttle and looked at the four unconscious astronauts; at first glance, they looked fine, but as I peered even deeper into their bodies, entering the nucleus of their cells, I saw their DNA, which was currently undergoing a massive change.

Thanks to my knowledge of bioengineering, I wouldn't say I knew exactly what was happening to their DNA, but one thing I do know is that after being exposed to that much gamma radiation, their DNA should be breaking down, yet instead, it's changing.

'No, it's more like adapting to the newly infused gamma radiation; besides, maybe mutants, I don't see how any human could survive that much radiation.' Pondered Tut with furrowed brows as he intently watched as the four's DNA slowly changed and adapted.

Anyway, while I was inquisitive about what was happening, it was best for them to return to Earth, though I was going to need to assist them with that as from what I could see, their space shuttle was barely working anymore; that cloud of gas did a number on it, if it stayed in their any longer, they probably would've crashed back on Earth.

'Welp, here goes nothing; first, it was a table, then a small plane, now a whole ass space shuttle, what's next, a building? A ship?' Thought Pharaoh as he flew underneath the space shuttle and placed his hands on it, enveloping it in his aura.

Seems my practicing has paid off as it only took a few seconds to cover it in my aura fully; flying towards Earth, we quickly pass by the several orbiting satellites and re-enter its atmosphere. Since this space shuttle was American-made, I headed toward the U.S. now here comes the problem, where do I land them? I would do a hospital, but there wasn't much point; if they were going to die, there was nothing any of us could do; they had been exposed to so much radiation it would be only a matter of time until they died. However, from what I could deduce, they didn't look like they were going to die, which was good, but something bizarre was definitely happening to them.

"Hmm, maybe I should just leave them in a somewhat isolated area and let their bodies sort out everything in peace?" Said Pharaoh with a thoughtful expression before nodding his head, shifting his direction a little.

Finding a small, isolated area in Utah, a place where absolutely nothing happens, I set down the space shuttle, hiding it behind some trees, making it a little harder to see. I was planning to go inside and check up on the four, but just when I grabbed the door, about to rip it off, I heard one of them groaning, and I saw them rub their head while slowly waking up.

"Ugh, what happened?" Muttered the astronaut in pain as he stood up while rubbing his head.

Seeing the man stand up, I once again peered into his DNA, and to my astonishment, it was completely stable, the same with the other four as well; now I was incredibly interested in learning what happened, but I had been gone from Sara for some time.

'Hmm, this should be fine.' Mused Pharaoh with a smirk as he backed away, his eyes taking on a reddish glow.

Using my heat vision, I wrote the words "Just yell Tut if you wish to talk" on the hull of the space shuttle; probably not the best idea, but who cares? It was already damaged.

"Now then, time to return to Sara." Said Tut as he launched into the air, his sonic boom startling the three remaining astronauts awake.

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"So where were you, Tut; you had been gone for like ten minutes?" Asked Sara curiously as she looked at Pharaoh's land on the ground before her.

"Something a little weird, to say the least; I'll tell you later." Replied Tut as he approached Sara, who nodded before suddenly being lifted into Tut's arms once more.

"Now, remember when I said about that spectacular view? Heh, better hold on tight; things are about to be out of this world." Added Pharaoh with a grin as he didn't even wait for Sara to respond before launching into the sky, passing the clouds, and leaving the atmosphere at an accelerated rate.

Just like I had anticipated, despite leaving the breathable atmosphere, Sara didn't seem to even notice; I didn't know the exact reason why, but I knew it was my aura coming into play. I also didn't need to worry about her being hit with the sun's unfiltered radiation; my aura also protected her from that, doing an even better job than the ozone layer itself.

"Pharaoh!" Yelled Sara tightly, holding onto Tut in fear as she saw the Earth below her get progressively smaller and smaller.

"Haha, calm down; we aren't stopping until we arrive at the moon." Remarked Tut with a laugh as he no longer held back now that he was in the vacuum of space, flying at full speed toward the moon, which was nearly two-hundred fifty-thousand miles away from Earth, though he managed to reach there within a minute.

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Seems like the Fantastic Four had booked flights for Airbus Pharaoh!