Marvel: The Enlightened One#35+36: The Phoenix Ignited, A Meeting Under the Inverted Waterfall

General Ross kept his expression stone-cold, but inside his mind was racing.

The reports from his scientists had just confirmed his deepest suspicions. An image coalesced in his mind.

Captain America. Steve Rogers.

To this day, the only successful recipient of the Super Soldier Serum. The peak of human potential.

The military had never given up on recreating the serum.

But ever since Dr. Abraham Erskine was assassinated, the true formula had been lost to history.

One thing, however, was certain.

The real Super Soldier Serum required gamma radiation.

That was the root cause of the Hulk's creation. Bruce Banner had been a military scientist, working on that very project, when the accident happened.

And that accident had given General Ross hope. Even if the Hulk was uncontrollable.

But now—

A human, with no discernible non-human characteristics.

Inhuman reaction time.

Superhuman strength and agility.

And the complete absorption of all gamma radiation.

Ross was now certain. The intruder had come for one thing: the gamma.

And when he put the pieces together, the conclusion was inescapable.

This was the Super Soldier he had been searching for.

"Find him."

"At any cost."

Ross's right hand clenched into a fist. He stared at the ruins of the gamma lab, not with anger, but with a terrifying, all-consuming excitement.

...

Hawk had no idea he had just become the new obsession of General Ross, the man who had once chased Bruce Banner across the globe.

But even if he knew, he wouldn't care.

Because Hawk was already gone. He wasn't just out of Quantico, he wasn't even in the D.C area anymore.

Right now, Hawk was at the bottom of a waterfall.

ROOOOAR!

The water thundered down, a relentless, liquid avalanche. It crashed onto the figure of Hawk, who was sitting cross-legged in the churning pool, wearing only a pair of shorts, his eyes closed.

But as the water, heavy as falling rock, slammed into his body, it seemed to vaporize on impact, shrouding him in a cloud of white mist.

He was in Cunningham Falls State Park, deep in the mountains of Maryland.

It was a place few people ever ventured.

Hawk had been here for over twenty days.

And for twenty days, he had been doing only one thing.

Burning his Cosmo.

Within his inner universe, the star chart of the Phoenix constellation now blazed with a brilliant light, the phantom image of a fiery bird shimmering within it.

He wasn't in a rush to return to New York.

For one thing, the school's summer session hadn't started yet. For another, he wanted to let the dust settle.

Hawk was curious to see if the military, after the mess he'd made at Quantico, could actually find him here.

If they couldn't, he would head back to New York.

And if they could? He wasn't worried.

He had chosen this spot for a reason. Five miles in any direction was nothing but dense, primordial forest.

It was the perfect place for a battle. The perfect place to kill.

Some people only respect force. You can't reason with them, you can only beat them into submission. You have to break them, instill a fear so deep that obedience becomes their only option.

You know what they say.

When the U.S. military accuses you of having weapons of mass destruction, you damn well better have them.

Why??

Because if you truly have them, no one will risk laying a hand on you.

But if you're just bluffing, well, then they're going to come at you with everything they've got.

So—

Hawk had deliberately chosen this remote location as his potential battlefield. If the military found him, the war would start here. He would break them, crush their will to fight, and then casually head back to New York.

But twenty days had passed.

He hadn't seen a single soldier. He hadn't seen a single person at all.

It didn't matter.

His primary reason for being here wasn't to wait for the military.

It was the waterfall itself.

Hawk was using the relentless, crushing force of the water to push himself past his limits, to finally and completely ignite the Phoenix star chart within his Cosmo.

For the past twenty days, his routine had been simple.

During the day, he would throw his ten thousand punches against the crushing resistance of the waterfall. At night, he would shut down his five senses, sit cross-legged in the pool, and let the 24/7 torrent of water hammer against his body, while he reached inward, searching for the door to the Sixth Sense.

Technically, a Bronze Saint wasn't considered a true Saint.

The legendary five were the exception, of course.

Only a Saint who had awakened and mastered the Sixth Sense was worthy of the title.

Hawk wasn't expecting to master it now.

That was unrealistic. But he had time. And if he was lucky, he might just brush against the edges of it.

The Sixth Sense was a game-changer!

A Saint with the Sixth Sense and a Saint without it were on completely different levels of existence.

It was the gateway to True power.

With it, a Saint could manipulate the elements, see the future, move objects with their mind, fly, create illusions... the possibilities were endless.

But alas.

Forget awakening it. He hadn't even found the doorknob.

Hawk slowly opened his eyes. He rose from the water, his body as immovable as a mountain, the crushing weight of the waterfall having no effect on him.

His blood was boiling, a furnace of heat radiating from his skin, turning the surrounding water into a cloud of steam.

And within that cloud, the fiery, spectral image of a phoenix shimmered into existence behind him.

Yes.

The Phoenix.

In the twenty-plus days he had been here, the military hadn't come, and he hadn't found the gateway to the Sixth Sense.

But he had accomplished his main objective.

Hawk had successfully ignited his first constellation.

One of the forty-eight Bronze constellations.

The Phoenix!

The next second, Hawk looked at the curtain of falling water before him and threw his first punch of the day.

<><><><><><><><>

One punch.

Then another.

And another.

Standing at the base of the waterfall, Hawk braced himself against the crushing torrent of water, his fists lashing out against the immense resistance.

With every punch, the wall of water would momentarily buckle, freezing in place for a fraction of a second.

But it wasn't enough.

He didn't just want the waterfall to pause for him. He wanted it to tremble. He wanted it to reverse its flow.

Hawk didn't think he was asking for much.

This wasn't Niagara Falls. Compared to the great waterfalls of the world, this one was a trickle.

So, was it too much to ask?

No. Not at all.

But clearly, the waterfall disagreed—

Do you think you're Poseidon?

And even if you were, what good would that do? He's the god of the sea. What jurisdiction does he have over a freshwater waterfall?

And so—

The waterfall, enraged by Hawk's relentless assault, began to flow with even greater fury, its speed visibly increasing.

Hawk felt the shift, the raw anger of the water, but his expression remained unchanged.

Deep within his Cosmo, the fully ignited Phoenix star chart pulsed with light. A fiery phoenix was slowly, majestically, taking form.

He had made his decision.

He would leave this place when this waterfall reversed its course—and not a moment sooner.

He only had a few days left before school started.

A burning, defiant light ignited in Hawk's eyes.

"Come on!!"

...

"...Was that thunder?"

Miles away, on the northern edge of Cunningham Falls State Park, Gwen, who had just entered the forest, heard the distant roar and looked up at the sky.

But the dense canopy of the ancient trees blocked her view, allowing only dappled sunlight to filter through. The shifting patterns of light and shadow gave the already quiet forest an eerie, almost mystical quality.

Unable to see the sky, Gwen looked back down.

Dressed in a bright white windbreaker and a pair of hiking boots, Gwen pulled out her phone and looked at the screen.

A tracking map was open.

Two pulsing dots, far apart, but now close enough to be seen on the same screen.

One was her current location.

The other...

Gwen took a deep breath, tightened her grip on the hiking pole she had bought in Thurmont the day before, and steeled herself. She started walking again, heading directly for the second dot.

At first, Gwen had just assumed Hawk's phone had been stolen. She tried not to worry.

She had been busy with her own summer internship after all.

The next day, Dr. Connors had asked if she had given Hawk the "Gift," and she'd realized something was wrong. After work, she'd gone back to Hawk's apartment.

And the envelope she had left on his table was still there, untouched—

But for reasons she couldn't explain, a sudden, cold panic seized her heart.

She had immediately called her father and asked him to use his resources at the NYPD to find Hawk.

At first, her father hadn't been too concerned, but seeing the genuine fear in Gwen's eyes, he had agreed to make a call to his colleagues in the Queens precinct.

He was the captain of the 19th Precinct in Manhattan. Technically, a missing persons case in Queens was out of his jurisdiction, but a friendly call to a fellow captain was all it took.

The result: nothing...

It was as if Hawk had vanished from the face of the earth.

He had no credit cards, no driver's license, and his phone was either stolen or dead. There was no way to track him.

To put it bluntly, Hawk was a ghost living in the modern world.

No family.

No social life.

He didn't even seem to have any friends. Even after opening a case file, the Queens precinct had no idea where to even begin their investigation.

No one could provide a last known location. When they questioned a few of his classmates, no one seemed particularly concerned that he was gone.

Well...

Except Gwen.

Two nights ago, her father had come home to find her just getting back, looking exhausted from another day of searching. He had finally asked the question he'd been holding back. "Gwen, are you in love with this boy?"

Gwen, who had just come from a cemetery in Queens, froze, then gave him her answer.

"Dad, Hawk and I are just friends."

"..."

By the time her father had processed her words, she was already halfway up the stairs.

George had blinked, then looked at his wife, Helen, who had been standing quietly by.

"Friends? Do you believe that?"

"It doesn't matter if I believe it or not."

Helen, ever the wise and gentle mother, had smiled at her daughter's retreating back. "But one thing I know, she’s no longer just a little girl."

George was speechless.

...

Up in her room, Gwen had thrown herself onto her bed, her mind filled with a gnawing, nameless feeling as she thought about Hawk, who had now been missing for over a week.

Just then, her phone had buzzed.

She had glanced at it, expecting another spam text.

But then, her eyes had gone wide.

It wasn't spam. It was another security alert from her phone provider.

She had frantically clicked the link.

This time, it wasn't a general location. It was a precise GPS coordinate.

Cunningham Falls State Park, Maryland. At the base of a waterfall.

...

And that was why Gwen was here now.

Soon.

As the roar of the water grew louder, a surge of adrenaline cut through her exhaustion. Drenched in sweat, Gwen pushed herself, quickening her pace.

Back at the base of the falls.

Hawk had just thrown his nine-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-ninth punch. He drew his fist back one last time. The fiery silhouette of the Phoenix behind him solidified, becoming almost real.

The next second, he unleashed his ten-thousandth punch. The fiery phoenix behind him spread its wings and soared.

"SKREEEEE!"

"Flow... BACKWARDS!"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

The waterfall no longer plunged downward. It roared to a halt, then surged upward—reversing its course into the sky.

In that moment, it was as if time itself had frozen.

But a single sound cut through the impossible silence.

A voice.

Clear.

And trembling.

"HAWK!!!"

"..."