31 Prehistoric Avengers #1 - Firehair
(Firehair POV)
My first memory is of rustling feathers and hungry eyes looking deep into me. Into my marrow. I'd only just been born, but I still remember the smell of death from that day. My first memory was of the burnt place. I don't remember my parents. I just know they left me there, bloody fresh from the womb.
They threw me away after barely one look at me. They left me in the burnt place to die. Fear is the most plentiful of our natural resources in this raw, primordial world. Fear grows like the fiercest of weeds. The bones were of others who were born different in some simple way, like me with my red hair. Born a different shade, different size. Too many fingers on one hand, eyes that didn't work the usual way. Or maybe their difference came from worshipping the moon instead of the sun. Among tribes all over the area, people who were different were left in the burnt place to die.
Except I didn't die. Before the vultures could consume me, a pack of wolves saved me. They took me in and raised me. For ten years, they took care of me, fed me and taught me to live. I still don't understand why the wolves saved me. Years later, I'd try asking them. In my own way. But wolves wrap their secrets up deep and tight, which is one of the many reasons I'd come to love them.
As I grew, becoming a part of the wolf pack, I found myself returning to the burnt place now and then. Though never for hunting. I knew I wasn't a wolf. But I also knew I didn't belong with the tribe who'd abandoned me. So what was I? Whatever I was, were there more of my kind?
.
.
(3rd Person POV)
Shortly after the War between the 10 Realms, Zgreb the Aspirant came to Midgard searching for the Progenitor. Zgreb would later be known as the first Dark Celestial who had become infected with the Horde after finding the Progenitor on Earth. Unlike on Earth-616, the First Avengers weren't formed and Odin was the one who fought against Zgreb. He also didn't kill or seal Zgreb but healed him. As thanks Zgreb the Aspirant fulfilled one of Odin's requests and transformed 100 mammals into what would later be known as mutants.
Odin used that knowledge he had gotten when he observed Zgreb and created his own variant of humans, which he called homo superior. The homo superior were similar to the mutants as they were given the genetic potential to develop powers later down the line. But there was not a special gene, like the X-gene with the mutants. Every member of the homo superior was the same, but the powers they could develop were different.
They would always keep their normal appearance and their powers wouldn't change their appearance in the slightest. All of them were naturally physically more powerful and had longer lifespans. Their intellect was the most impressive about them though.
They didn't have Tony Stark or Reed Richards levels of intelligence, but the average IQ was at about 120. They were not given any technology from Asgard, but they were being watched by Odin in the beginning, to make sure they were taken care of. He would send them tips and basic knowledge through dreams and different animals.
Gaea also helped a bit. She was interested in the homo superior because they were Odin's creation and she was interested in what something he would create, could achieve in the long run.
.
The homo superiors were special. Their genome was not really different from normal homo sapiens. What made them superior was that their entire lineage was blessed by Odin and Gaea. The way he did that was by using his knowledge of runes. If you were to look at the DNA of a homo superior and had access to a beyond-comprehension powerful magical microscope, you would be able to see billions of runes on the DNA that were powered by the Odin Force.
Should someone think that he or she could replicate this by transplanting the DNA, he or she would fail, because the runes destroy any genetic material that leaves the body, immediately. And even if that were to somehow still work, the runes can be depowered with one thought, should Odin want that.
There will be no revolution or uprising among his creations. Even if that would never work.
.
The 100 mutants which Zgreb had created, managed to prosper to some degree and reproduce. One of those was the young Firehair who was abandoned as an infant.
When she was ten, Firehair discovered a child with one eye had been left at the Burnt Place, and was confronted by a floating man who spoke to her with his mind.
'Don't hurt him.', Firehair heard a voice inside her head. She turned around in anger and saw a floating man smiling at her.
'I'll take care of the child.', the man transmitted his thoughts to her. Taken by fear, she fled as she had never heard words before. She didn't understand that the man wasn't talking to her with his mouth but with his mind.
.
After a while, her intrigue and interest won over her fear and she made her way to the man who was living inside a cave. Her desperation about being the only one who was different, made her approach the floating man.
'You're the one the wolves took in.'
The voice of the floating man again was heard in her mind. Before she could flee, the man 'spoke' to her again.
'Don't run. I won't hurt you. This cave is a safe place. I promise you. Yes. My voice is inside your head. I apologize for the intrusion, but it's the only way I can speak.', the man said.
Firehair stopped running and turned around. Her interest in the man continued to rise.
'Words are such a rare gift in this world. No matter how they're delivered. A gift you don't possess, I see. I hope you can at least feel the peace and the truth behind my thoughts. And the regret as well. I'm afraid I must offer you another apology.', the man continued to project his thoughts to the young girl.
'I'm sorry I didn't help you. I was watching when you were brought to the burnt place as a baby. I was too afraid to move the way I did. But after the wolves took you... I vowed to never stand by again and watch one of us die. I thought they would've eaten you. But here you are, back from the dead. Tell me, girl with the hair like fire ... would you like to come home now?'
The young Firehair didn't understand the thoughts which the man projected into her mind. But she could feel their meaning. She told the wolves about her situation in her own language and then returned to the man. The wolves howled for many days when she left. She was part of their pack, but she felt that she had to go.
'It's okay. No one will hurt you here. We're your tribe now, Firehair. No matter where you were from before. You don't have to be afraid anymore. None of us does. We're the tribe without fear.', the man said and introduced other mutants to her.
[Picture]
The irony of the situation ... that anyone who would live long enough to see modern-day mutants, would understand. It was like the situation of Charles Xavier and Jean Grey in prehistoric times.
.
Firehair joined the Tribe Without Fear - a collection of mutants that the man - whom Firehair called the Highwalker - had rescued from the Burnt Place and taken upon himself to raise and train.
Sometime later, Firehair's own mutant abilities awakened just in time for her to warn the Highwalker of an impending attack by the neighbouring xenophobic tribes, as is usual for mutants.
The tribes who had been leaving their unwanted babies at the fireplace to die had finally realized that there were more than just babies surviving there.
'Their minds, I feel ... rage. What is happening? Am I ... thought-speaking?', Firehair questioned.
'No time. All of you, go. Deeper into the caves and don't come out until I call you.', the Highwalker said.
The Highwalker could have killed them all. He could have torn their brains to shreds, smashed their bodies, or even compelled them to kill each other. But that's not who the Highwalker was. He didn't do any of that.
Instead, he tried to talk to the tribesmen.
'Calm your rage. We are not a threat to you. Please, go back to your forests and leave us be.'
He didn't want to hurt them or control them. He wanted them to see the truth with their own ignorant eyes. There was a chance that this could have worked if it weren't for the young Firehair and her awakening abilities.
The humans ' fear and rage overwhelmed Firehair's newly awakened psychic abilities.
'So much hatred. White-hot ... They will hunt us forever. We have to ... GGGAAAAGH!'
The Highwalker felt the high emotional instability of Firehair and he tried to calm her down.
'Firehair. No, do not hurt them! We can't give in to their fear and hatred! You have to control your- AARRGH!!'
A spear pierced the Highwalker. Firehair's growing and developing powers distracted the Highwalker and allowed for one of the spears to impale him.
This resulted in the Highwalker's death when he dropped his guard to soothe her. Firehair fainted as her fellow pupils gave into their rage and attacked the attacking tribesmen, resulting in the deaths of everyone present save herself.
.
.
(Firehair POV)
There was no saving anyone. I was in Highwalkers mind as he died. I was inside all their minds as they fought and slaughtered and lost control of their own powers. They did so much damage to each other as they did to their enemies.
My psychic awakening was a night of murder and death and the worst of all possible thoughts. I don't know how it didn't kill me too.
I lay there for a long time wishing it had. Then I stumbled through the carnage for hours wondering if it was possible to kill yourself with your own mind. And realizing that the Highwalker had been wrong about me ... nothing comes from the dead. Not really.
Not for long at least.
The vultures would get their meal. The one they should have had all along. I lay in the burnt place. And as I lay on that burnt ground, surrendering my flesh to feathered death. I suddenly asked myself for the very first time ... how did the burnt place come to be?
What was it that had burned this ground so long ago? Burned it in such a way that nothing had ever grown here again?
And what would happen ... if it ever came back?
.
.
(3rd Person POV)
In that moment, something happened. A primordial Force of fire, death, rebirth and psychic energy came to Firehair.
[Picture]
The Phoenix Force had arrived.
The Phoenix burned a mark into the Earth at that moment. Drawn to Firehair's untapped raw psychic power, the Phoenix arrived and saved her from the vultures and burned them to ash.
The Phoenix Force saw Firehair as the chance to do what it was meant to do ... to burn planets to ash and allow for new ones to be born.
Firehair would have made it feel justified in doing so. Her loss, her hunger for vengeance and the cruelty of the world she was born into.
Humans deserved to die, didn't they? They deserved to be cleansed from this world, which was infected and impure. Earth's corrupted evolution had to be stopped for the sake of the universe as a whole.
It would have been a righteous fire. Making the entire Earth into a burnt place. Most of humanity will never know how close they came to extinction while still in their crib. Only the homo superiors would remember, because it was someone they knew well, that intervened and put a stop to the fire.
.
"I believe that is enough, young one.", a deep and powerful voice was heard. Firehair turned around and saw a tall, burly man standing before her.
The girl aged visibly and grew into a young woman. Her eyes were bright yellow and her voice was mixed with that of the Phoenix Force.
"Odin of Asgard ... you come late. My friends are already dead."
"Indeed. But is that not a part of what you represent? Death and rebirth. So why don't you bring them back?", the Allfather asks her.
"Don't lecture me about what I should and shouldn't do, Allfather. You are nothing in the grand scheme of things. Don't assume that you are!", Phoenix roared and the heat from her fire, burnt the surroundings to cinder.
"I am not telling you anything, just as you shouldn't tell me anything. What you are is of no consequence to me. Midgard is under my protection. If you wish to fight, I am ready to do so.", Odin tells her seemingly unimpressed with her show of power. The Odin Force manifests slightly and pushes the fire back.
