Susan casually walked through the streets of Fólkvangr with her invisibility masking her presence. Usually she would openly visit certain shops and boutiques that had begun to pop up within the city proper but she wanted today to be a calm stroll and less of an enjoyable rush. To that goal, she was traversing many of the gardens that Freya had ordered to be built across the city.
Built in between residential zones and expansive suburban districts the gardens of Fólkvangr were wondrously diverse. One garden could be entirely tropical, focussing on floral life inside jungles, covered with an atmospheric dome that regulated heat, humidity and any number of other factors... The next could be a simple oak forest with all the accompanying fauna and scents. Each garden was unique and were arrayed in such a way that the citizens who lived close to the heart of the city could peacefully journey between them. If she was to walk through all of them it would be equivalent of walking fifty kilometres.
The walk between them wasn't free of its wow factor either as all of the walkways between the domed or segmented gardens wove between skyscrapers and large artistic monuments. Some statues were historical in nature, having large holographic representations of Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Charlemagne, Tokugawa Ieyasu, George Washington, Philip the Second, Arthur Pendragon and Morgan LeFay. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of tourists visited each day to take pictures and photos with them; each statue having their own square dedicated to them that sat below the elevated walkways. Other monuments were more artistic in their display having been created with actual marble and material in comparison to the hard-light of the displays. There was even a weird statue of a man, a woman and their father standing tall with interesting visual effects added to the depiction of their auras... Freya was odd sometimes...
Needless to say Susan was enjoying her stroll through the city that her wife technically owned. It was still odd for her, to consider Freya her wife, as she had been raised to believe that relationships were always between a man and a woman; a philosophy that was quickly abandoned by her when Freya saved her from her former relationship. The idea that they were tied in such a way brought a smile to Susan's face, despite the failure of her last 'marriage'; if it could be called that.
Spending time with Artoria and Yuna had helped her process her past comfortably, Freya not having been brought into those discussions due to her busy schedule, also as a consequence of her position within all of their relationships. They had called it a wife-night, a ritual that had been continued every fortnight. Their schedule for that night was always ensured by Freya's own, her game making night coinciding with the timing of their own event.
She settled on a nearby bench and watched the mutants and Inhumans walk by. That was another thing that she and her sisters; her fellow wives, had been discussing. Mutant-kind had made significant progress living under a positive government. Many of their powers aided in construction and science, Magneto specifically being capable of altering molecular electromagnetic fields that could potentially be observed for the possibility of finding new elements for the periodic table. So far the man had been focussed on his newly formed agency; supported by Niccolo, the SRRA or the Superhuman Rescue and Recovery Agency. So far he had gathered his old band of mutants, the brotherhood, cajoling them all into spreading out internationally. They would save abused Mutants using Cerebro in Xavier's mansion and introduce them to a whole new world.
The point of discussion for them had been an initiative proposed by Mystique. In and of itself the initiative was positive but it would signal a major shift in how mutants interacted with the military and other such segments of the Australian Government. Susan's opinion was to let it through whilst Artoria wished to wait a while to see how stable society could truly be with Mutants, Inhumans, Force Users, Wizards, Witches and Aliens all living beside one another... She had used convincing arguments to support her decision but Susan couldn't help but let her positive world view taint her thoughts on the matter. She would blame Freya for her perception-tainting happiness but that would be stupid and counterproductive in the grand scheme of things. No, she was much too busy researching he X-gene and its varying differences in different people. Most people forgot she was a scientist, an easy mistake to make seeing as how she was usually solving some crazy super-hero crisis alongside the other three of the fantastic four.
Now however, well, she was given an almost unlimited budget by Freya to research what she wanted. Additionally she was the first to know if her wife had gotten some new fangled technology. To say she was content would be an understatement given the fact that she had a loving partner who spent many, many, hours spending time with her and her sisters.
She exhaled and stood up once more, watching the smiles grow on the faces of kids and adults alike as they roamed the city personally created by her wife. A small smirk crawled onto her love-heart shaped face as she sedately walked to the next enclosed gardens.
...
Yuna was huffing slightly as she crushed another set of weights. She had been exercising all morning and was finally finished with her two hour routine. Sweat glided down her forehead and slowly trickled over her inflamed muscles. Her biceps were twitching after her reps leading her to rub them in hopes of working out small sparks of pain.
Looking around she watched as the Spartans, the personal guards of her, her sisters and Freya, continued in their workouts. If what she was doing was for health the Spartans had made it an art form. The female Spartans were running at 30/kmph as the males crushed five thousand kilogram weights as if they were fifty kilogram weights. Though impressive the entire spectacle made Yuna grimace in frustration for a time, her own personal record only taking her to the one-thousand kilogram mark. She hadn't even attempted to use her newly found Kryptonian enhancements; her powers allowing her to segregate differing genetics from one another on her command. Generally she avoided using high powered forms or genetics for long periods of time as they became harder and harder to control all at once.
This had been the focus of her training as of late, Hela surprisingly aiding her in taming her mutation. It had been confirmed that she was indeed a mutant and possibly in the upper levels of power. She had versed Magneto a few times and had matched him in scope of power though her control lacked. If Susan wasn't so busy throughout the week she would have asked her to a spar... her duties to death were more important however and thus she had to take all the assistance a Norse Goddess could provide.
Slowly cleaning herself off with a flannel she set the weights back to their original condition and strutted off towards the exit.
Some would consider her greediness for power a sin but she considered it good business. Demons existed and could rip the souls of humans down to lower planes of existence. The League of Assassins, run by her father, had recently put a bounty upon her. New powers and beings were popping up on Earth by the day and many of them were concerning her. Magic existed and was proven to by her lover, her partner, her wife... It was all crazy and she needed power to secure the existence of the family she had here, and that she wanted in the future.
Activating her phoenix powers she flamed away to the Uchiha compound where her martial arts training would continue. Chakra was powerful and immensely useful, gaining that power had been more than worth it... She mused about the varying magical effects she could cause with her control over the substance flowing through her chakra pathways... Yes, she was getting to the point where she could aid Freya, but it would still take a little while before she reached that position.
...
Artoria grinned at the mirror before her as a ruby-red glow softly suffused her skin in scale-like tattoos across her body. Ever since she had been given an awakening by her Queen she felt an increased sense of possessiveness towards her fellow sisters and Freya herself. The once apocalyptic power that she drew from was tainted by the desolation of dragon fire and the primordial magma of nature.
Beyond the basic changes she could now draw upon the mythology of her pantheon, that of Albion, to attack and defend. The spells of Morgana could be cast just as powerfully as the wards of Merlin. Mordred's propensity for chaos magic and probability manipulation now swept over her like a cloak, protecting her from foreign influence both magical and spiritual. Her heart beat with the immortality of the Earth itself and her mind thrummed to the tune of the leylines' pulse.
If before she could have annihilated entire towns or small cities... Now she could wipe out Fólkvangr with a mere 10% of her concentration. A saint was very important in her lest world and now she was one. She couldn't help the swelling love and adoration she felt in her chest for her wife who allowed her to renew her own pride, to set aflame her thirst for life and progress once again.
Truly... If the world was to be plunged into the decrepit embrace of entropy once more she would be there to stave it off with the pride of a dragon and the deep endurance of Britannia and Avalon itself. No one, nothing, would hurt her new world and her wives.
She brushed her hair a few times more before nakedly striding to their shared bed, lazily languishing herself in the fine silken sheets as the air-conditioning blasted at full strength.
...
Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, Reed Richards was fiddling around with an extra-dimensional portal. This was to be his greatest discovery yet, a discovery that would ensure the funds of the fantastic four and the Avengers forever. He called it: The Negative Zone!
"Hah, beat that Doom!"
His technology whirred away as Susan watched on lovingly from behind him, Franklin softly cradled in her arms. As she watched her husband work on his new project with a fervour he rarely found for their family as of late she couldn't help but wish that he spent more time with her, or even their son.
A hand softly landed on her shoulder, her brother's. Johnny Storm shook his head in exasperation before traipsing into the room, ignoring the varying devices that were in his way. He kicked a few of them in his stomping march and was met by a wide-eyed and scared Reed Richards...
"No! What have you-" The portal that had been behind plasma-weapon immune glass flickered on as the grey of the Negative Zone fizzled and blazed into a vibrant orange-yellow.
"Oi, oi, oi, this isn't my fault Reed. You were ignoring your family."
Reed went deathly pale as his hands glided across his instruments, soon turning red as the portal stabilized and telemetry soon exploded into the mainframe of his computer; frying it instantly. Wherever the portal had connected it was filled with intense data streams and signals...
Susan stressfully played with Franklin as her eyes darted between the portal and her husband. "What happened honey?"
He grimaced. "I, I don't know Su... All I know is that whatever is on the other side has a breathable atmosphere."
"Can you shut it off?"
He petulantly glared at her brother for a moment before shaking his head in frustration; turning to his gadgets again.
"Possibly, but I'd need to trace back the damages done by Johnny... I'm going to place the room into isolation and activate our teleportation and energy emission protection protocols. We may want to tell Ben as well."
Johnny winced and quickly stormed away, no doubt to find Ben and slightly fix the situation he had caused.
"Should we call in Stark?"
Reed scoffed before rolling his eyes.
"We don't need the peacock. Just give me an hour and I'll have the problem isolated and extrapolated."
Susan bit back a retort that would have made comment on the amount of time he spent on his work in comparison to his family. It wouldn't help in the current scenario and would do very little to snap the man out of his newly found funk.
"Okay honey... Please try to make it for dinner..." He waved his hand in a dismissive way, his hand gliding over his computer controls once again as he activated scanners within the room.
She felt a pang of pain deep in her heart but stifled it as she moved out of the room with her beautiful baby boy in her arms. She wouldn't cry, not in front of her son.
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