Draul took a step backward, making Sunspot's attack miss by a hair's breadth while he slammed Shaw with an ice punch.

Shaw just grinned thinking the Draugr didn't know what his abilities were and continued attacking the man with fervor, taking in the strikes as he stacked up on the strength it gave him.

It was a common misconception when it came to those who knew about Shawn's mutant status. Though it was in the very minority, since most of them were dead, the ones who knew thought his ability was to absorb force, kinetically speaking, but it was much more expanse than that.

He could absorb any type of energy out there, heat, psionic, waves, electromagnetic, sound, as long as they were in large quantities. He could also absorb more obtrusive things like the cutting energy from a sharp object or the pelting from ice. A wondrously universal ability he had.

He truly felt that both he and Sunspot could defeat the famed Draugr if they kept at it with such pace since Sunspot could absorb solar radiations and other heat particles to augment himself to ridiculous degrees that breaking the sound barrier with a reflexive punch was very easy. All they needed was to stall the Draugr until they accumulated enough energy.

Shaw jumped at the Draugr from overhead while Sunspot fired off higher condensed solar flares from his hands that were more than hot enough to melt through reinforced steel.

As if to mock them, the Draugr used one hand to hold his strawhat in place and did something that neither of them thought possible.

He cut Sunspot's beam with a chop that the concurrent beams could not pass through the spot he chopped at. It felt like there was something blocking the beam from going further.

While for Shaw, he held him overhead before proceeding to slam him twice on the ground and then flung him towards Sunspot, making him collide into the beam the young man was still blasting.

"Not yet enough." Draul beckoned on them with a 'come hitherto' flex of his hands.

Shaw grunted, his body releasing a glow of energy that surrounded him while Sunspot flew up, changing tactics.

"I think we'll have to take it a little more seriously, sir." Sunspot spoke as he body released more energy to the point that the space around him darkened making him look like a phantom.

Draul only raised an eyebrow at the words of the youth but didn't say anything else.

He looked at Shaw then at the boy called Sunspot and had a pensive look on his face before it brightened.

"Excuse me, your abilities, it allows you to augment yourself proportional to the amount of energy you can take in and release right?"

Sunspot looked confused as the clearly, should be, hostile invader was taking his time to ask him if his abilities. He deliberated answering but given what he's learned from Shaw, he knew that would be a fool's bargain.

"What makes you think so?" He wanted to know the man's observations and know what were the limits of his knowledge in regards to his abilities.

"… Because I can see it." Draul stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

He wasn't lying. He really could see the amount of energy the boy was constantly taking into his body. It was a ridiculously huge amount and the ease at which he augmented it throughout his body astonished Draul.

With the amount the boy was taking in, he should have been way stronger like continental level strong. The only person Draul knew who could presently absorb solar radiations or any type of energy as fast or nearly as fast as Sunspot was Bruce Banner, the Hulk, and himself.

From what he could see, Sunspot was using as much energy as he could absorb, but….

'His loss. All I want is to test how far my base strength has grown.'

"Forget about that for now. From what I know, Shaw isn't that far from the limit of energy he can absorb and assimilate, so I'll be focusing on you more in a bit."

The two men had different expressions on their faces at Draul's words.

Shawn's face completely blanched for a second before he got his disarrayed emotions in control as his mind worked out frantically on how the man knew anything whatsoever about his abilities. Not only that, he was also fearful about the man's scope of knowledge about his abilities' limits.

'He's more dangerous than I thought. From the way he first subdued Emma, I think he has some form of mental defense, that's why he has her on death's doors, meaning we can't count on her abilities in this fight. Guess it'll boil down to who hits harder and even if I am not confident to contest with him that regards, he definitely doesn't know what the upper limit of Sunspot's abilities looks like.'

Shaw could feel a little pricking weight on his body and knew that what Draul said had some evidence of truth to it. If what he said about seeing Sunspot's energy was true then maybe he was also right about his limits. Shaw could feel the temperature going down and it was not due to the ice that they were standing on.

Shaw looked towards the yacht and he could still see Sublime, Buckman and Emma still held afloat while he was engaging them in battle.

'I'm getting the feeling that we should have waited to hear why he wanted Buckman.'

Shrugging off the trepidation he was starting to feel as the fight went on, he signaled Sunspot with his eyes and the youth immediately knew what he was gunning for and he acted in accordance.

He used one hand to blast the icy frozen sea between them and the Draugr, while he used the other to shoot at Shaw who was waiting wholeheartedly for the attack.

Draul, seeing all this, only waited for Shaw to be fully charged before he made a move. Cracking his neck, a savage grin appeared on his face. "Ready or not, hear I come."

This time Shaw was able to react as his body's reflex was empowered to a cap below his current limit, unfortunately being able to react did not by any way mean being able to fight back.

He learnt the hard way that lesson.

Draul crossed the distance in the blink of an eye, taking his sweet time to perform a round-house kick to Shaw's brain box. Shaw to his credit was able to form a guard at the side of his head to block the kick but points were deducted as he flew a few meters before crashing into the ice even as he absorbed a part of the force from the kick.

Sunspot's surroundings on the other hand looked like a hazy glow of black. The flare around his body lowered in intensity while the glow deepened.

The very second Draul comprehended what his transformation could represent, Sunspot appeared right in front of him with a speed far surpassing that of sound, and punched at his head, going for a full lethal strike.

There was no way Draul could conjure a block made of ice before the punch reached him nor could he fully dodge as the strike was right before him so with a grunt, one of his hands blazed red and he caught Sunspot's fist right before it impacted his face.

The look of surprise and shock on his face as he saw Draul react to him at such close range was bare for whoever could see, even on his featureless face.

"That punch was pretty strong. Looks like I can't keep up to you in my base in terms of speed. What about power eh?" The red glow on Draul's hand subsided. Stretching his free hand forward, he attempted to grab Sunspot by the scruff but the youth was quick on the uptake and released high degrees of scalding heat to discourage the Draugr's action but that proved meaningless as he was still caught, with the man ignoring how hot he was.

Sunspot grabbed Draul by his collar in retaliation to keep him grounded while the punched Shaw rushed at Draul from behind.

Punching all the ice blockades spawning in front of him on his path to the Draugr, Shaw joined his two fists together in a hold as he jumped up, aiming his locked hands for the Draugr's head.

The was a few inches away from his targets when he saw zooming red in omnidirectional linear paths as they impacted him on his chest.

The recoil of that action caused him wheezing as he slid back, his body spasmodic with the booms from the fight between Sunspot and the Draugr.

He could feel that he was dangerously close to nearing his limits on how much energy he could absorb.

The ice started cracking as the booms and explosions became louder. The sea underneath started seeping through the crevices, foreshadowing the broken roots of the ice.

Shaw turned around intending to engage the Draugr in battle but what he saw gave even him goosebumps.

Two of the Draugr's hand were glowing red as he exchanged blow in equal magnitude with Sunspot.

The battle was above the realms of what Shaw was comfortable with.

With Sunspot, the youth was at his wit's end with the living legend he was engaging in combat with. He and every notable member of the Hellfire Club had been informed on the knowledgeable scope of what his abilities were and even with the upper estimate they gave him for any observation error. Fighting him now, Sunspot could tell that it was still underestimating him by a huge margin.

It was like the guy had eyes everywhere on his body and those laser beams, God! What kind of beams were those that they could change directions like that?

He could shrug them off given that his body absorb any heat related properties like a sponge but that didn't mean that they didn't work as perfect distractions.

And his strength.

'Gaddamn!'

The moment his fist started glowing, it felt like the fucking man started wearing tanks for biceps. Sunspot could still keep up with him but he had the feeling that the man could still go harder which was proven as the motherfucker drew lightning from thin air and struck at Sunspot.

Lightning constructs formed around him, all with different shapes and sizes. Sunspot knew he could shrug off most strikes from the lightning but that didn't prevent it from doing its damage. Case in point, the lightning around the Draugr dug into the ice and before Sunspot could react, lightning shot out from the ice around him. Electricity travels through water faster than it does through most states of matter.

Sunspot found out that he was wrong to skip physics class as the lightning drew him forward, greeting the waiting fist of Draul with his stomach.

"You really are strong aren't you? You still are not at your upper limit but I doubt you could push out more power." Draul, while controlling the water particles on his body back to the ground. "And here I thought I could see the true limits of my base form." He muttered to himself but it didn't escape the ears of Sunspot.

"Hey son, what's your name?" Draul asked.

Sunspot was skeptic as the man was clearly their enemy. He looked at Shaw for instructions only to find the man wrapped in a cocoon of ice with only his head visible.

He looked at Draul and alternated it with Shaw before coming to a decision. He was wise enough to understand that the man before him wasn't fighting him at his strongest, though what that was he didn't know.

"Da Costa. Roberto Da Costa." He answered.

"Word of advice kid, don't hang around these parts of the circle. Sure the money, prestige and power you get are astonishing, but then someone like me comes along and then…" Da Costa watched in shock as the cocoon turned red while Shaw tried to scream but even his voice was muted.

"… people like you die. Do me a favor, be careful of the circle you choose to align with."

Da Costa did not know what to say. The Black King just died like that.

"Here, give them a call. I'm sure they'd be willing to take in a stray like you. They're big softies like that."

Draul formed a small ice card and passed it to Da Costa and engraved on it was a line to the X-Mansion.

He left the young man alone on the ice and floated to where Emma Frost was held. He could see the terror within that calm façade of hers.

"What am I to do with you?" He looked at her for a while and all he came up with was nothing. He had no reason to kill her as compared to everyone here, or at least their comic versions, hers was quite miserable.

The number of deaths and betrayals and even distrust she received from friends and foes alike made her easily one of the characters to sympathize with.

'Speaking of deaths…' Draul looked at the frozen corpse of Shaw, the prick who he could finally recognize as Empath, the frozen bodies of Buckman and Sublime. 'Yeah, definitely miserable.'

He released her and with a squeeze of his hands, killed Buckman.

He floated Sublime towards him and prepared to get to work. There was no way he was carrying a frozen virus, talk less of a man in his Murcielargo.

COLD CHRONICLES I

…

[Steve Rogers POV]

The world sure was different that everything I ever thought it could be.

When I woke up and was told about people being born with superpowers, I was surprised beyond all honesty but it wasn't something I couldn't get around.

Then I was told that them having superpowers meant that there were people who could literally turn to fire and some could control the weather. The scope of superpowers I understood was shattered and rearranged at that moment.

That I could also deal with.

Then there were some who could control metals.

Like where do I even begin with this sh- garbage? Half of the earth was covered in metals and then there were the classifications.

Epsilon.

Beta.

Alpha.

Omega.

And it turns out that the dude who could control metals was among the few of the highest classification.

But even then, I had still been ignorant of what it truly meant.

Even when Draul told us about the girl, or entity, who could destroy the Earth, I had still been doubtful.

But then everything changed.

The night of Christmas Eve changed everything I ever thought was possible. Draul had once said offhandedly that there were some children with the X-Men that could very well destroy continents if their abilities continued growing, and although I trusted him, I mentally scoffed at that.

I believed I had seen what 99% of humans could not even begin to comprehend back during my time but Draul showed me that there was still the 1% that even I would not be able to comprehend even if I saw it or was told about it.

The very city of New York shook that night when Bucky and I were hitting the shots. We rushed outside but what we saw in the sky sent chills down my spine.

We tried to help as many as we could because the fights to be had were close to none and our gears were left at home.

It was during that time that some kids, metahuman kids, came along and started causing trouble despite the disaster that was already happening.

Bucky and I quickly put most of them out of commission until some of the X-Men and Fantastic Four came and helped us in fending off most of the stronger members of what I then identified as the Brotherhood.

Clint found us during that time and told us the overview of what was happening.

The tectonic plates were shifting as well as the earth's polarities around New York, which Clint told us was currently 7% elevated.

The timely arrival of the Brotherhood members and the current disaster was too coincidental a timing that all of us were quick to realize.

After taking three shots to the knee from a gun Bucky always had on him, the crippled meta told us what I feared.

Someone was behind this.

Something that could affect the entire city of New York and from the reports Clint was getting continuously, it was spreading to the seas and neighboring states.

All of this was done by the confrontation of three people, mostly coming from someone specific: Magneto.

Someone who could control the polarities on not just metal's but that of the earth. The odds of facing off against such a person and powers, even though I never admitted it, had me scared. The amount of destruction they could cause was… exactly like what I was currently witnessing and more.

And not to mention the other individuals who could survive such fights – Draul, and the last person who Clint was guessing was Dr. Doom.

I knew Draul was strong, hell he made it a daily mission before we left for Russia to beat up me and Bucky daily. I thought I had seen the upper strata of what Draul could do. I thought I had a handle of what the bulk of his abilities entailed. But this? This was inhuman.

As if it wasn't enough, the storms that their confrontation caused had claimed hundreds of lives at sea and a few thousands in neighboring cities. Even though we had Ms. Munroe helping calm most of the storms, it still wasn't enough. Lives were being lost by the second and I had never felt so useless like I felt at that moment.

With the responsible departments making their way through the disaster and a few volunteers working to save others, Bucky and I, along with Clint and an agent named Hill, we made our way to where our house was located but even then we still couldn't come close to it.

We were still more than a kilometer away from it but the evident destruction we saw made us unable to continue.

We saw magma spewing out from the ground, ice freezing the entire land only for it to be melted the next second. Rocks flew on their own as if defying gravity and the ground seemed to discourage their feet from moving even as the air became hard to breathe.

We could see the flashes from a fight we knew we would die the second we entered and I was pretty sure I was not the only one who felt like shit at that moment.

Lightning rained from the clouds above only for it to be sent back. The earth broke apart and flew up in the air defying gravity, so did the ice and magma, all flowing upwards.

The fight continued for almost an hour before it stopped with a red light blinding the first hours of Christmas with crimson.

That light was the proof I needed to know Draul had won as minutes later everything started falling back down. The storms had started seizing, the booms stopped but the red flames flowing through the ground continued.

The air became lighter as it was before while the ground released it hold on them. We obviously couldn't drive through such terrain so we made use of our feet and raced to wear we knew Draul was and once again I was speechless.

If the landscape of a kilometer and a few out could be ascribed to that of natural disasters. Randomly happening natural disasters, then the scene they came upon could only be called destruction. It was as if they entered another place that was entirely cut off from the human world – hell.

As if their surprise wasn't alone, they found a huge hulking man in the form of Draul, sitting at the side while Ms. Munroe came to meet them, giving them the news of the ended battle.

I wanted to ask how my friend was doing but the lady gave us an instruction from Draul himself.

He sat there, head held down, over the course of two days while we did all we could to stop anyone, military or civilian, from getting even as far as 5 km from Draul's ground zero.

The next few days saw us helping out around the city along with the Romanoff sisters, who thankfully came out of the disaster with a few scratches.

The four of us, including the young Yelena, had a talk about what type of plans we had going forward. It didn't take a fool to know that from now on, with such calamity as a prelude, the world as a whole would dive into a search for higher powers.

Nukes wouldn't do it anymore, nor would they act as the perfect deterrent, and for such frenzied search for powers above what they could possibly control, those with such powers who don't want to be under any sort of authority will come together and then, a whole new meaning of war will start anew.

…

"I don't like this one bit guys."

"What are we supposed to do then Steve? Like Draul sometimes says, 'not everyone is lucky enough to win the cosmic lottery. It's all a gamble you never knew you had stakes on'." Bucky said as he hit the punching bag, sending it flying across the new gym.

Natasha too had a look of frustration on her face as she swung her knives. "He is right Steve. No one likes it, but the truth is that we are just as powerless as most of the people in this country when it comes to the big fights more than we would like to admit."

The fact that what she said was a glaring and painful truth made me bend the barbell I was pressing in an overhead press unconsciously. I scowled as I threw the deformed barbell to the flow and went for a dumbbell. "It doesn't mean I'm going to like it one bit."

"Why don't you guys… I don't know, ask Draul for help? He was researching the Super Soldier Serum before that whole shindig with Magneto and Dr. Doom and I think he recently found a lead on this Klaue guy he's been looking for since last year. I don't think he'll be against anything you guys ask him." Yelena spoke from where she was sparring with her sister. "Seriously, I'm the only one not getting the special treatment despite being the youngest. I want to drive a supercar too, you know? But no! He had the gall to suggest highschool." She huffed as an elbow was delivered to her midriff.

What she said, the part about asking Draul, not the supercar obviously, had some merit to it but I don't think it's the right way. Asking someone for empowerment of any kind, especially considering the world we currently live in, was never a good idea, definitely not to the scale of this.

"I don't think that's a wise idea. Asking for someth-"

"Gah! Boys! Why do you guys always have to make it harder than it already is?" Nat groaned out whole ducking under a swipe from her sister and swinging her knives for the exposed underarm of said sister. Why they always went for such lethal training was something I'd never understand.

I ignored the latter part of what she said since that was not a discussion I would wisely argue with a girl over and focused on the important part. "What?!"

By now, all of us had already stopped what we were doing and were now staring at three different pairs of eyes each.

At my question, Nat looked at her younger sister and looked at her with what I would call exasperation. "You want to go first or should I spell it out for them Nat?"

"Go first. I think the impact would sink in better." Nat shrugged.

Bucky and I shared a questionable look before turning to the younger girl who just rolled her eyes. "What makes you guys think he's researching the Super Soldier Serum? Why do you think he didn't just whip out a new arm for Bucky and insisted on going for something better?"

I don't understand where they were going with this line of questioning when they could have just given us their answers straight.

Seeing us not answering, Yelena threw her hands up in the air, indicating she was giving up which made us turn our attention to Nat.

"Draul doesn't need the Super Soldier Serum, I think that's a point we all agree on." We nodded as she said that as it was true. "Then why do you think he's working on it?"

Realization hit me and Bucky at the same time but I frowned the more I thought about it. "It could just be that he's trying to research it." I think that was a pretty good valid reason.

"For what? Do you really see Draul as something of a scientist? This is the same person who complains all the time about there being too many components inside a cell. Yeah no."

Now that she said it like that, Draul, although with his questionable wisdom, didn't seem like an intellectual. Definitely not how I would imagine other scientists.

"So….?"

"So there's really no need for you to get your panties in a twist. Despite all the savagery and axe swinging kink he's got going on, which personally I think is hot," I rolled my eyes at that, "is a big softie inside."

That I could agree he was, though in confusing ways. But…

"But why would he do such a thing without any sort of prompt?"

"I think you should ask him that when the time comes, and given his bluntness, I think you'll find the answer… mundane." She said.

"Do you know why he's doing it?" Bucky asked.

"I have an idea. Which is why I think he's a big softie." She chuckled to herself before dropping her knives at the nearby rack. "Gentlemen, don't think too much about it. If you still have doubts, then just ask him. It's as simple as that." With that she left the gym.

Maybe I was thinking too much about this. She's right. If there was ever anything about Draul I had doubts on, the best way to clear them would be to ask. He was just as simple as that, that no one would know how truly terrifying he really was. Even after all this time, even after what happened last year, I was not confident enough to say that I knew what his upper limits were.

I was brought out of my thoughts as I saw Yelena standing in front of me with an expression I didn't know what to call.

"So… Uhm… Can I like, borrow your car for a ride?"

While I didn't know what was the point of having an Aston Martin… there was no way in hell I was letting her drive my baby anytime soon.

"Hell naw!"

"Come on Steve! Just this once. I promise Draul wouldn't know."

I laughed at that. It was weird how despite what she said about not receiving special treatment, she was the one who had Draul's eye on. I wonder how he'd be when he's finally a father. If the way he's like a hawk when it comes to Yelena is any given indication, then he'll be like their second shadow.

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Read up to 25 chapters ahead at pa*treon /Draul_TheOminous.