Chapter 375: Welcome to Hell's Kitchen, Miss Nova
"You know why the two of us ended up here?" Ajax, the original Deadpool's villain, sneered. "Because we buried OUR world's Deadpool."
"Ha! That's genuinely pathetic." Deadpool's mouth curled into a mocking smirk, mischief sparkling in his eyes.
"Would you look at yourselves — a matched set of losers, and you actually thought you could stand in the way of THIS universe's protagonist? If your whole storyline played out like this, even your own writers would probably be embarrassed. No audience left to speak of."
"And forget a third movie. Let's be real — the only reason you two even get to stand here talking to me right now is because of ME." Once he'd finished roasting them, Deadpool turned and kept going, addressing the camera directly.
(Seriously, author? This is the best you've got? Running out of ideas, so you drag out the C-listers to pad the runtime?) Deadpool privately griped to himself, though his hands never once slowed down.
He kicked off the ground hard, blurring forward toward Ajax and Angel Dust with near-supernatural speed, barely giving them a chance to react. "I'm ridiculously strong right now — way out of your league." A vicious fight erupted the instant the words left his mouth.
Gambit, Blade, and the others covered yellow-suit Wolverine's push up to the second floor, and Hell's Deadpool quietly slipped along behind him.
The rest of the group held the doorway leading up, keeping the mutant forces from interrupting the conversation about to unfold between yellow-suit Wolverine and Cassandra.
Everyone had their own role to play — and everyone found an opponent to match.
"Bullseye?" Elektra spotted a familiar face ahead. She and Bullseye had always been rivals — in some parallel universes, he'd even been the one to kill her.
"Dracula?" Blade came face to face with his own old nemesis.
Even Wolverine ran into a villainous alternate version of Cyclops along the way.
Only poor Gambit — with no franchise film of his own, no dedicated villain waiting for him — had to settle for mowing through generic mooks. Still, his flashy, explosive combat style was more than enough to remind everyone exactly who Gambit was.
(Garbage Some-X — Gambit was actually supposed to get his own movie, you know. Then some company went bankrupt and it never happened. Honestly, probably for the best — if it HAD gotten made, they couldn't have afforded my salary anyway. You should all count yourselves lucky I'm even cameoing in this movie of mine!)
Meanwhile, up on the second floor, our dashing yellow-suit Wolverine had finally come face to face with Cassandra.
Cassandra — mysterious, elegant — reclined lazily on a plush sofa, a delicate porcelain teacup in hand, savoring the rich flavor of English afternoon tea, seemingly untouched by the chaos raging elsewhere.
Downstairs, explosions rocked the base, gunfire echoing endlessly — a jarring contrast against the perfect calm of her own little world, like two entirely separate realities occupying the same building.
Nobody looking at someone this graceful would ever have guessed she ruled like a tyrant underneath it all.
Cassandra set her teacup down slowly, admiration plain in her gaze as she looked over Logan. She rose and walked toward him, every step unhurried, composed.
She'd never actually managed to capture a Wolverine before — after all, Logan was practically the soul of the X-Men, and her brother Charles adored him.
And Cassandra loved nothing more than taking things away from Charles.
"Join me. Together, the two of us would be unstoppable." Cassandra's voice came out soft, laced with allure.
Before Logan could even respond, Hell's Deadpool — who'd been sneaking along behind him the whole time — pulled out his signature little knife and lunged for a sneak attack.
"Baby blade, engage!"
The attack, naturally, went nowhere. Cassandra flicked her wrist like she was swatting a piece of trash, and Deadpool went flying instantly.
Cassandra was thoroughly unimpressed by this Deadpool interrupting her and Logan's private moment.
Undeterred, Hell's Deadpool kept right on rambling. "Look, hey, you should really show me some more respect here. I'm not like that broke, ugly version of Wade out there. I've got money, I've got people behind me, and Ethan's got my back."
"And FYI, I already called Ethan in. He might even bring Charles along too. You should really watch how you talk to me, because once Ethan gets here, I could probably talk him into going easy on you—gah, gah—"
Before he could finish, Deadpool got treated to the same fate as that earlier Human Torch — Cassandra peeled the flesh right off his bones with a single casual gesture.
A blinding flash of light instantly enveloped him. That light carried something powerful within it — the Horse Talisman Deadpool always kept on him, kicking in right on cue. His wounds sealed themselves shut at a visibly rapid pace, his shattered body reknitting itself back together as if nothing had ever happened.
Cassandra's interest sparked instantly. "Now that's interesting. An item like that actually exists? Let me have a look through your memories."
She'd already figured out this was yet another parallel-universe Deadpool and Wolverine pair. Whatever "Ethan" or "Charles" this Deadpool kept name-dropping hadn't interested her at all — but a trinket capable of that kind of instant regeneration? Now that got her attention.
Suddenly, whatever world this Deadpool came from had her genuinely curious.
Before Hell's Deadpool could even react, Cassandra's fingers were already sinking straight into his skull.
Cassandra had her own way of reading memories — unlike her brother Charles, she needed to physically insert her hand into someone's head to do it.
"Ugh, I'm not clean anymore! Do you people not believe in hand sanitizer?" Hell's Deadpool let out a pained, exasperated groan, his mind erupting into an unprecedented storm, as if countless unseen hands were tearing through every memory and emotion he had, turning everything upside down.
Cassandra, meanwhile, moved through it all with the cool detachment of a seasoned explorer, Deadpool's memories flickering past beneath her fingertips like scenes from an old film.
There was Deadpool, undergoing the experiment that left his body unable to die.
There was Deadpool, out on missions.
Meeting Ethan.
Saving Wolverine.
Every memory Deadpool had, Cassandra picked through, one by one, in full clarity.
Eventually she arrived at a rundown street, a restaurant, a sign reading "The Lucky Dragon" glowing warmly in the fading light of sunset — clearly some kind of sanctuary tucked deep in Deadpool's heart.
"So this is your most treasured memory, is it." Cassandra, thoroughly intrigued now, walked straight inside.
She wanted to see for herself what made this particular restaurant so special.
Stepping through the door, the first thing she saw was Deadpool sitting with Pietro, the two of them absorbed in a video game. And scattered around the restaurant, she spotted plenty of other faces she recognized — or, more accurately, faces of people who'd once died at her own hands: Magneto, Doctor Strange, Dr. Banner, some kind of Punisher, Daredevil — superheroes she'd personally killed before, all present and accounted for here.
Cassandra wandered through the restaurant like she owned the place — after all, this was purely a walk through Deadpool's own memories. Nobody here could actually see her.
What she failed to notice: a whole group of people in this memory were watching her with distinctly odd expressions.
"Doesn't seem like there's anything especially interesting about your world," Cassandra said, still inside Deadpool's head.
Except the voice that answered her wasn't Deadpool's at all.
"This is just an ordinary restaurant. Not much to it, really. Though I've got to say — casually rifling through someone else's memories like this isn't a great look, Miss Nova."
"Oh, and one more thing — welcome to Hell's Kitchen, Miss Nova."
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