The Morlock Tunnels weren't technically in the sewers proper, though they could be accessed through them. Rather, they were a series of abandoned underground military installations that ran interconnected throughout New York City and were interested in places with both the sewers and disused sections of the subway system.

Without Quicksilver dragging me along at relativistic speeds, it was a bit of a walk to get to the section of the tunnels currently occupied by the X-Men and other refugees.

"...You used to live down here?" Kelda asked me.

"Not here exactly, it was... It seemed like a good idea at the time," I defended lamely. "I was..."

"You don't have to justify yourself to me, Maria," Kelda insisted with a smile. "I just thought it an odd place to live by choice."

"Well, we're going to meet some people who aren't here by choice," I explained. "These are good, innocent people who got chased out of their homes and were forced into hiding after a bunch of jackbooted bastards framed the mutant nation for genocide."

"And one of these people is among the people you wronged?"

"Kinda," I explained, "we might run into one of them down here but I don't know his schedule. Mostly we're here because someone else is down here at least sometimes and she offered to put me in contact with someone else I need to apologize to." Honestly, I could probably just go to Miles's apartment but that'd almost certainly just start a fight. "Also, I kind of helped some of these people escape from an illegal facility where they were falsely imprisoned so if we get mobbed that's why."

Luckily, it seems that my first trip down here got the thanks out of everyone's system. A few people waved but the only person who actually approached was Cain.

"How you do, kid?"

I shrugged, "Pretty good. I'm a god now."

"Cool, since when?"

"The evening of the day I was here last," I gestured to Kelda. "This is Kelda, she helped me with that and she's also my—"

I was interrupted by Kelda placing her arm over my shoulders. "I believe the term on Midgard is 'girlfriend,'" she declared proudly.

"Ah, nice," Cain acknowledged, "how long have you known each other?"

"We met in the afternoon of Mariah's apotheosis," Kelda explained, "when this amazing young woman came into my village with an insane plan to be forged into a living weapon to rival the power of the All-Father. After that, how could I not..."

"Wait," I asked, "was that when you started falling for me?"

"No," Kelda said bluntly, "that was half an hour later when you casually walked up to the All-Father and requested the use of a powerful and dangerous artifact as if you were asking your neighbor if they had any extra eggs." She smiled at me. "The sheer audacity of that... Then you took me to Midgard and what I saw there... Then... When did you start falling for me?"

"...When I first saw you I thought you were the most beautiful person I'd ever meet and..." Kelda was suddenly smiling smugly but also playfully, "what?"

"It wasn't the heat, was it?"

I felt the heat rise to my face when I realized what she meant. "...No."

This prompted a small, mischievous giggle from Kelda.

"Okay..." Cain replied, either not getting the joke or trying to remain respectful, "So what are you the god of, Maria?"

"No clue," I replied, "It probably has something to do with energy or weapons but... I'm also a Skymistress—my preferred feminized form of Skyfather—so like Zeus or Odin I've got some divine-cosmic power stuff going on that makes it a little tricky to just guess. Mostly it just seems like all the powers I've collected so far merged into one thing, like.. If I lifted something telekinetically before I was using some psionics I absorbed with my symbiote but now it's like I'm using psionics and magic and cosmic power and everything else I took in all at once. Makes things easier and a bit more versatile but... I'm rambling."

Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually," Cain replied. "So, you got a reason to be down here or is this just a social visit?"

"Ah, yeah, do you know if Ms. Marvel is in?"

Cain pointed back toward the 'meeting area' with his massive thumb. "She's upfront with the rest of the main X-Men. I think they're meeting up with the Unity Squad. Did you hear? Turned out that that phony baloney Captain Krakoa who was pretending to be Scott turned out to be Stevil. You remember him, the fake Captain America Hydra was using as a figurehead when they tried to take over America?"

"So the Jackboots got a Nazi imposter to play the role of an imposter," I deadpanned, "how surprising."

"The real surprise is that he somehow got acquitted for trying to nuke NYC," Cain said with a shrug. "And he's still with ORCHIS despite trying to kill Dr. Stasis. Calling himself Flag-Smasher now."

"Oh, God damn, I need to start watching the news." At least I didn't sleep through this one, I think. I think I'd heard about the original Flag-Smasher. He was an anti-nationalist extremist, so a Nazi using his... Well if he comes back as a vengeful ghost that'll be why.

"...I feel like there's some context that I don't understand," Kelda said after a moment.

"It's a long story that goes back about eighty years at this point," I said, "I'll explain later. Anyway, Cain, it was nice catching up but I've got business to attend to."

"Don't let me hold you up."

"He seems nice," Kelda commented.

"I mean, he is now but he wasn't such a good guy a few years ago," I said with a shrug. "I don't know what happened but now he's one of the good guys."

Kelda hummed. "Some people can change... Though, did you notice the energy that saturated his form?"

"Yeah," I replied. That was one of the things I noticed about being a god. It wasn't quite like being able to see auras or anything, but I could just sort of sense the sort of powers that people had. I mean, I couldn't exactly tell specific powers, but gods felt differently from mutants and so on. "If I've got it right, his powers come from a demonic entity called Cyttorek."

"Hmm."

I didn't want to interrupt the meeting, so I waited back in the tunnel. However, that proved to be a mistake when a woman shouted "I know you're there, come out with your hands up!"

Kelda and I looked at each other and then complied.

In the 'meeting room' were most of the people that had been here before, plus a few others. No sign of Cyclops, even though Kamala was apparently in contact with him. Was he busy elsewhere?

The woman who was like an aged X-23 came up to me, uncomfortably close, and started sniffing me. Literally. Like a dog. "You're Maria, the Girl Captain America brought her a few weeks ago?"

"Yes."

"You smell different. Why?"

"I don't know, I'm a god now, that might have something to do with it."

"Why were you skulking in the tunnel?"

"Because I didn't want to interrupt the meeting," I swallowed. "I... Ms. Marvel offered to put me in contact with the Champions the last time I was down here and this was..."

"Who's this?" the older woman said with a gesture to Kelda.

"I am Kelda Allsdottir of Asgard," Kelda answered for herself. "I am Maria's girlfriend, to use the terminology of Midgard, and I am here to support her quest to make amends to the people she has wronged."

The woman stood there for a moment, before their brown-haired woman who I still didn't recognize called out "That's enough, Talon."

The now-named Talon backed off and Ms. Brown-hair continued, "Luckily for you. we were just about finished here."

The adults plus one teenager concluded their meeting and then Kamala approached me, "So what do you need exactly?"

I pulled out a slip of paper, "you offered to pull in all the Champions so I could try and talk things out with Spider-Man in a situation that wasn't exactly confrontation... I know you guys can get all over the country pretty easily, how fast do you think you could get to this address?"

Kamala looked at what I'd written down. "Probably a couple of days, assuming nobody is too busy and the X-Men doesn't need me for anything... Uh, where is this?"

"A house I was recently gifted," I said straight-faced. "It's a long story and I'm not sure I have enough spoons to explain it."

"Fair enough, now do you just want us to come over or..."

"I want to make peace with Spider-Man," I said, "and... I've got the power I need, or at the very least I can't really think of how I could practically get much stronger on short notice short of going off into space and finding this one really dangerous Celestial artifact thats currently locked up in a sun somewhere but I really don't want to pick a fight with the alleged Elder of the Universe guarding it and apprently if you're not careful it can f—" I glanced over to where Captain America was standing with the Avengers Unity Squad. "...Mess with your head pretty bad. So I've been keeping an eye on the Symbiote hive-mind for any sign of Carnage, settling into my new place, and introducing Kelda to the food and music of Earth..."

"I am particularly fond of the dish that Mariah calls a 'cheeseburger', as well as the music of the band 'Galactikraken,'" Kelda added helpfully,

"But also I've been... thinking about what happens after all this is done... If I want to live the life I want to live, I need to be okay with myself and... I'm not. I did some, really messed up stuff and at the very least I owe some people a few apologies so... Tell Spider-Man to think of this as sort of a peace offering, come over, talk it out, let me explain myself and properly apologize... I'll provide food."

"What kind of food?"

"I was thinking of smoking a brisket," I said, "mostly because I've always wanted to try smoking a brisket and now I finally have the space to try." I used to cook a lot before all of this happened. I wanted to get back into that, even if I didn't really need to eat anymore it was just something... Normal, I guess. "And other than that just normal like, cook-out food. Why, do any of you guys have like, allergies or diet restrictions."

"Well, I'm Muslim so any food I eat has to be halal," she replied.

...I knew that, it was in my codex memories from Cyclops. "Uh, no pork, no alcohol, meat has to be humanely slaughtered and fully drained of blood, and it can't be cooked with anything that isn't halal or on a surface that's cooked non-halal food, right?"

"That's the gist of it," Kamala confirmed. "There are a few finer details, but my family isn't super strict about it except on religious holidays."

"Okay, I can work with that." It wasn't like I ate much pork myself anyway.

"Do you have a phone or any kind of social media?" Kamala asked. "So I can message you when I've got this set up."

"Uh, yeah, I picked up a phone just to have," I said while producing it from subspace. We exchanged contact information and that was that.

"Okay, I'll message you once this is all set up," Kamala confirmed.

"Thank you," I replied, and then, I walked over to the side of the chamber where the Avengers Unity Squad was standing, specifically approaching Deadpool. "Uh, while I'm here, I should probably a—"

"No, none of that," he insisted. "I started that."

"I literally stabbed you in the back."

"And I literally shot you, and was going to do worse, because of a case of mistaken identity."

"I mean, I did kind of look like whatsherface back then."

"Still, I should have done more homework before jumping in half-cocked like that."

"I still feel bad about it."

"Okay, if you forgive me, I'll forgive you."

"Deal."

He then held out his fist for a bump, which I returned. That was easier than I thought.

Shortly afterward, Kelda noticed Captain America's mighty shield and he obliged her when she asked to examine it. After a few moments of her absolutely adorable gushing over the material and craftsmanship, she came back to me, "What do you need to do next?"

"The next thing... The only other thing I was hoping to do today... We need to go to a place called the Hellfire Club."