This is Boull. Here, the Celtic nations are always in a primitive state of development. Meanwhile, the Great Powers grow, breed, and build new technology all around them.
Welcome to the Orinoco River. It's a very large river near the equator. Here, the capybara breeds like the rabbit...and the anaconda hunts with gluttony and wrath.
In a treetop, a porcupine sits, feasting on leaves. He's covered in quills, and has a big pink nose...along with long black whiskers. Like the monkeys, his tail is prehensile. Unlike Alexander Gentry, he doesn't need an exosuit to be dangerous.
In other relatively mangrove treetops, scarlet ibises sit, grooming. They're very red...some would daresay FIRE-red. Alas, they're no phoenixes. They're just as much strangers to resurrection as the tapir.
Speaking of what, a few of those swim around in the Orinoco, too. Often, they use their short flexible noses as snorkels. They share these waters with river dolphins; fellow ungulates. Well, sort of... (Is the dolphin an ungulate now, or is the hippo just a cetacean?)
Alas, the dolphins soon scatter. The tapir panics, and starts making way towards the river banks.
High in the sky, a bright blue light shines. It keeps getting bigger and bigger, leaving a trail of cobalt-blue smoke in its wake.
And it splashes down...into the depths of the Orinoco. All along the bottom, stingrays scatter. The meteor leaves a small crater down there. From it, a few lungfish abandon their hibernation.
As the dust settles, the meteorite becomes more decipherable. It resembles a conglomerate...of sapphire, cobalt, and cobalt-blue metal... It might have some Cross particles in it, too... Lights glow from a few parts of it...
Hours later, the sun rises. On the surface of it all, one can't tell that a meteor hit this place. If the river was shallower before, the Andes have long-taken care of that. Even so, the dolphins and tapirs give this part of the river its space. Soon, the meteor won't be the only reason they do.
In the midst of all of this, a yacht floats underway. Every now and then, a fishing line casts away, and its lure splashes down nearby...and far away. The boat's varnishing is cobalt-blue.
Below, many eels swim past the boat's hull. Tony Roberts, the angler aboard, catches many of these...and keeps them. His latest girlfriend STILL doesn't know why he'd bother.
For Tony, life can be complicated, being a mutant's boyfriend. But then, that's just the way Tony likes things. He and the Stark family aren't that much different...
She comes up from below, dressed to catch an eye in a light grey bikini. Her great hooters play peek-a-boo from behind the small cups. Her red hair is long and flowing. She may be a mutant, but she's also the product of Scottish, Welsh, and Breton breeding.
Meet Hope Grey. Don't let her feminine looks fool you. She's an apocalyptic power bent on destruction. With luck, though, she'll find a way to control it before it controls the world's destiny.
She stands, and watches indifferently, as Tony tosses another eel into the live well. At last, he sees her...and gawks. She grins...and uses her mutant telepathy to read his mind.
"You want to have sex with me," she says.
He scoffs. "You ever doubted it?"
"I always doubt it. How can I possibly know how sexy I am? I'm the one who has to live with myself."
Tony nods, and looks her up and down. "It's not a bad self to live with. Better than mine, actually."
She scoffs, and shakes her head. "If only you could see you through my eyes..."
With few more words, they make out with one another on the forecastle. She's now hard at work with him. He just lies back, and lets her have him. She's a fierce redhead. Once she starts, there's no stopping her.
Below, the leviathans of the Orinoco give them their space. There's just something about mating rituals that repels all else...
Hope smiles, and lies on her back. After a while, Tony lies on his side, props his head, and thinks.
"I think I might try to get my job at Stark back," he tells her. "It often crosses my mind that there is SO much more I can do with the Cobalt Man than what's already been done. We already know that the rebreather works. Since cobalt is radioactive...maybe I could make a suit that's like the Iron Man suit, in that it can stay intact inside the vacuum of space...and at the same time, it could TELEPORT to other planets, too." Hope twitches, and makes less pleasant expressions, as her boyfriend preaches. "Hell, if I could find a way to do that without having to experiment on Nightcrawler, the Starks just might appoint me an officer's position at the company." He chuckles. "I'd be the envy of the Emissaries of Evil, for sure... And then I could build a bunch of factories with their own arc reactors, that're all powered by cobalt, rather than..."
"Tony? I think you're missing out on the whole 'don't talk about work' concept of leisure time. Also, you don't have to tell me anything about your job; I can read your mind. I can also sense that work has been haunting your thoughts since we came out here. Look," she sits up. "My mutant powers are quite developed. If you consent to it, I can program your mind to where you can't think about work. I promise to un-program it as soon as work becomes relevant again."
Tony sighs. "I'm sorry, Hope. I'm just...not used to taking time off from my legacy."
She takes his hand, and presses it against her huge breast. With it, he can feel her powerful mutant heart beat. It's a phoenix-like tempo.
"If you let me," she fixes his hair some, "I can teach you how."
He gapes. "I...DO want to know how..."
A mosquito flies too close to her ear. With her mutant telekinesis, Hope crunches the poor bug up like a tiny beer can, and casts it into the river...the place where it was born and raised...if not in quieter water.
"Fucking mosquitoes." She stands...dwarfing Tony with her bare legs, thighs, thigh gap, and camel toe. "I'm going below to get some insect repellant." She points a green-polished finger down at him. "Don't go away."
She levitates away, and vanishes into the hatchway leading below deck. Once again, Tony is all alone on the weather deck. Telepathically, he tries to request a beer. More telepathically, she refuses him one.
A creepy feeling creeps over him. Slowly, he turns his head...and looks down into the river water.
From beneath the surface, a big blue light shines. There's something down there. And for some reason, the eels swim right past it, barely regarding it. Hell, by now, Tony's pretty sure he's seen an arapaima swim right past it. Arapaimas are the biggest fish in this river...or in freshwater in general. The largest ones make sturgeons and catfish look like bass.
In a flash, Tony fetches his rebreather...which is made of Cobalt Man armor. It's...also powered by a cobalt-powered arc reactor. With luck, the cobalt's radioactivity won't poison the air he breathes while he's underwater.
In cobalt-blue trunks, he jumps into the river. As his spot in the river makes ripples, a can of beer teleports itself onto the forecastle, and sets itself down near where Tony was lying only moments before.
Tony dives past all of the fish near the surface, and into the crater the meteor's left. As he swims across it, it gets darker. As he nears the center, it gets brighter...with blue light.
At last, he sees it. And it's got him mesmerized. It looks much like the one he once made the first Cobalt Man armor from...only slightly bigger. The conglomerate...also looks like it includes more substances than the last one did.
In his mind, he can hear Hope trying to send a telepathic signal to him. He ignores it, and reaches his hands out towards the meteorite. He wants it. He needs it...