The air bent around them in a flawless sphere, ripples skating across its skin as blue energy washed against it and broke like surf. Johnny planted himself at the edge of the shimmer, flames licking higher on instinct. Ben took a step forward and set his feet, granite knuckles grinding once.
Reed didn't move. He couldn't. His eyes were pinned to the wound opening in the beam—a vertical seam where blue became black and depth became distance, as if the room had been peeled back to show what lay under the skin of reality.
Something pressed through.
It wasn't a hand, or a claw, or a monster's snout. It was intent—cold, unhurried intent—and then the intent had a shape: a tall, spare figure in a robe the color of midnight seas, gliding as though the floor itself bent to welcome him. The portal didn't throw him into the chamber. It placed him, deliberately, as a chess piece.
In his hand, a slender scepter gleamed, crowned with a shard of impossible blue light. It sang softly in a pitch that made teeth ache.
Security raised rifles.
"Hold your—" Hill began.
The figure turned his face—elegant, bloodless—just enough to glance their way. Every weapon lowered at once, as if the thought of firing had never existed.
He spread his hands, voice soft yet somehow grating, carrying far without effort.
"Mortals. Do not be afraid. You stand at the threshold of purpose. You have been chosen, not cursed. For yours is the honor of serving a power beyond comprehension — the Great Titan, whose will is the will of the universe itself."
The scepter pulsed, and blue light danced across the room like the shadow of a star.
"Rejoice. For in obedience, you will find clarity. In surrender, you will find peace. And in service…" His gaze swept across them, weightless and crushing all at once. "…you will find the glory of Thanos."
Silence. Not the silence of calm, but the silence of shock, confusion, and a bit of awe. After all, it wasn't every day you met an alien.
He looked around and paused at Reed, his alien eyes flashing blue for a moment, before he smiled widely. "You will serve nicely." Then, almost gently, he turned the scepter toward Reed Richards.
Reed flinched, breath catching, but his hands never left the controls. Blue fire licked over his eyes, and the frantic blur of his typing slowed. Precision replaced panic. His face went blank, serene as though every equation had finally balanced.
"Reed!" Johnny shouted, flame flaring in response to his emotions. "Don't you dare!"
The stranger tilted his hand, and Johnny's fire compressed into a tight, trembling globe, bound by invisible fingers. Johnny strained, teeth bared, but the inferno refused to spread.
"A spirited one," the stranger observed. Before gently lifting his other hand, causing Ben to float as if he were weightless, stopping him in his charge. "I didn't expect beings like you here in Midgard, but it matters little; you will all serve."
"No, we won't!" Barton dropped from a rappelling line, bow already drawn. His first arrow streaked for the intruder's throat.
The figure inclined his head, polite as a courtier. The arrow froze mid-flight, then it twitched and moved forward slightly, causing the intruder's eyes to lock onto Sue.
"You all get more and more interesting, don't you?" He said and waved his hand, causing Ben and Johnny to fly backwards.
"This is a government building, and you are intruding. I ask that you surrender yourself and cooperate." Fury tried to defuse the situation, though he still kept his gun aimed at the intruder.
In these short moments, he had already learnt a lot about them. For one, they were clearly serving someone else, and rather fanatically at that. And secondly, he referred to this place as Midgard, which meant it was no accident he was here.
More so, Fury had to admit that this person was more powerful than they could handle with what he had at hand, so he hoped that they could reach an accord, or at least buy time. Because Ben and Johnny were getting on their feet, which meant that once they recovered, he hoped they could overwhelm the alien.
The alien's smile did not falter. The scepter dipped lazily toward Fury, as though amused by the gesture of defiance.
"Your weapons are toys, your authority parchment," he said softly. "You cannot bargain with inevitability. You may delay it… but you will serve."
Reed's voice cut across the chamber. Calm. Detached. Wrong.
"The field harmonics are unstable. The feedback is accelerating. If containment collapses, the cascade will vaporize everything within twenty miles."
"Reed—" Sue started forward, but the look in his eyes stopped her cold. They weren't the eyes she knew. They were lit from within, cold blue fire replacing human warmth.
The intruder inclined his head, approving. "I hadn't expected much from such a primitive world, but at least you are smart enough to see the truth. Tell me, can you fix it?"
Reed shook his head. "Impossible, the equipment was never designed to handle this load; at most, I can limit the range."
"No point in that, the destruction will serve as an excellent distraction, keeping Asgard blind of my actions here," the intruder said, looking upwards, as if seeing something none of the others could see.
Fury's grip on his pistol tightened. "You're planning on blowing a hole in half the state just to keep this quiet?"
The alien's expression never changed—calm, serene, even faintly amused. "Midgard is a speck. If its destruction serves the Great Titan's design, then so be it. Sacrifice is the foundation of purpose."
Sue pushed forward, her shield flaring brighter to shove Johnny and Ben back onto their feet. "Not while I'm here," she hissed. "You don't get to decide who lives and dies on this planet."
The intruder tilted his head, as if considering her—like a scholar admiring an insect for resisting its pin. "Defiance. Admirable, if futile."
Another surge tore through the rig. Consoles exploded in sparks. A containment arm sheared off and crashed into the deck with a screech of tortured metal. The Cube's glow spiked, burning white-blue, filling the chamber with a throbbing hum that rattled bones.
Hill's voice cut in, sharp and urgent: "Director! Readings are off the scale. If we don't evacuate now—"
"Hold the line!" Fury snapped, even though he could feel the floor vibrating under his boots. He knew she was right. They were seconds from the point of no return.
Reed kept typing, face a blank mask of obedience. "Seventy seconds before the cascade begins. Forty before the safety margin vanishes."
Johnny snarled, heat pouring off him again. "Then what the hell are we waiting for?!"
"Your surrender," the intruder replied softly, lifting the scepter. Energy arced along its length, blue lightning crawling across the walls.
Sue threw her entire will into the dome, forcing it wider, pressing against the alien's reach. "Get out!" she screamed to the others. "I can hold him!"
"You will break," the intruder whispered, pressing harder, frost-webbing across the curve of her shield. "And when you do… You will serve."
Fury barked, "Hill—get them moving!" He yanked Johnny by the arm, Ben by the shoulder. "We're done here! That rig goes, it'll take this whole facility with it!"
Another shockwave buckled the ceiling. Chunks of concrete fell in a hail of debris.
The alien gave one final glance at Reed, then at Fury. "This world opens its door, Director. When it does, you will understand that resistance was never an option."
With a raise of his hand, everyone felt a pull, as if gravity was suddenly turned on its head and pulling them towards the glowing spear-like object in his hand.
"No, you don't!" Sue shouted as she pushed her powers to their limit, holding back the force that threatened to pull them over.
Yet, despite her best attempts, she wasn't strong enough, not entirely. While those closest to her were able to resist thanks to her efforts, those a bit further away, weren't so lucky.
They tried their best, but in the end, Hawkeye and Ben were both pulled over and gently tapped with the sharp tip of the spear, and a glow of blue passed through them as they stopped all resistance.
"A pity, but they will be enough." His voice was as calm as ever, as if the defense truly didn't matter to him at all, so sure in his victory, in his vision that nothing could shake it.
With a lazy sweep of his hand, the tesseract flew from the machine and into his palm. "Come, we have much work to do," He said, not caring about the others, certain the explosion would deal with them, and he and the others disappeared through another portal that snapped shut behind them.
Fury cursed under his breath, grabbing Sue by the wrist and pulling her bodily toward the blast doors. "That's it—we're gone!"
Then the doors slammed, and the world behind them roared as though the earth itself had split apart.
-----
[CNN Breaking News]
"…reports are still coming in. Authorities confirm that a massive explosion occurred earlier today at a classified government installation in the mountains of western Montana. The facility, long rumored to be operated by the Department of Energy, has been reduced to rubble. Eyewitnesses in nearby towns described the sky lighting up with what appeared to be a 'blue sun' before a shockwave shattered windows across a fifty-mile radius."
Static buzzed across the screen for a moment before the anchor returned, face pale but steady.
"Officials have not released a casualty figure at this time. Emergency crews have been denied access to the site, citing radiation and chemical hazards. Pentagon spokespersons insist there is no threat to the public, though they have refused to answer questions regarding the purpose of the installation. Rumors range from nuclear testing to advanced energy experiments.
"What we can confirm is that the blast was detectable from three states, registering as a magnitude 4.1 earthquake on the USGS scale. Residents in the area have been evacuated. Whether anyone inside the facility survived remains unknown."
The feed cut briefly to shaky cell phone footage — a pillar of blue fire stabbing into the clouds, followed by a rolling detonation that turned the horizon white.
The anchor's voice lowered. "Again, we cannot verify at this time whether this was an accident… or something else."
The chyron at the bottom of the screen read in stark letters:
MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSION LEVELS REMOTE GOVERNMENT SITE — SURVIVORS UNKNOWN
(End of chapter)
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