World Conference Hall - Morning
Inside the conference hall, the silence was extraordinary.
Not the comfortable silence of people waiting patiently, but the specific silence of several hundred people collectively holding their breath, every set of eyes locked onto the main entrance doors with the focused intensity of people whose entire future depended on what came through them.
World leaders, military commanders, scientists, intelligence directors—all of them reduced to the same basic human condition of simply waiting and hoping.
Ten minutes passed.
Then the doors finally opened.
Two female figures entered through the entrance, walking with the kind of calm, unhurried confidence that suggested they were completely aware of the effect their arrival was having on the room.
Although there was no trace of the male figure everyone had been specifically expecting—the one from the video, the one who'd made Hela negotiate—nobody in the room felt disappointed.
Not even slightly.
The relief was actually physical, something you could feel in the air pressure changing.
Their biggest fear hadn't been that the wrong person would show up. Their biggest fear was that nobody would show up at all—that Sokovia would simply ignore the invitation entirely, that the door would stay closed, that humanity's last thread of hope would just... not materialize.
So even if the main figure himself hadn't come, even if he'd sent representatives instead, that meant something. That meant they were at least interested in talking. That there was still a conversation to be had.
People began quickly searching their memories for context on the two figures.
The first was quickly identified—Wanda. The same young woman from the video, the one whose quiet voice had persuaded Elric to step back from confronting Hela directly. The one he'd listened to when he'd been radiating cold determination. Whatever her exact relationship with him was, it was clearly close enough that her words carried real weight with him.
Beside her was a more publicly known face—Anastasia, the nominal ruler of Sokovia. Although every intelligence agency had their own theories about whether she was a genuine leader or simply a figurehead for the more powerful person operating behind the scenes, right now nobody cared about the distinction. She was here. She represented Sokovia. That was enough.
Tony moved forward immediately, extending his hand with the practiced ease of someone who'd done ten thousand introductions.
"Please, it's wonderful to meet you both," he said, keeping his voice warm and deliberately non-desperate despite everything riding on this moment. "Thank you for coming."
"Yes, of course," Anastasia said, shaking his hand with a firm, professional grip.
"Please, take a seat," Tony said, gesturing toward the row of chairs arranged at the front of the room, facing the assembled representatives.
"No, thank you," Anastasia said pleasantly.
And then, completely ignoring Tony's gesture and the entire seating arrangement that the conference organizers had spent considerable time setting up, both women walked directly toward the front stage.
A ripple of nervous energy ran through the room as people watched their movement, trying to read the intention behind it.
Without paying any particular attention to the hundreds of eyes tracking them, Anastasia stepped up onto the stage and walked directly to the microphone with the comfortable authority of someone who'd done this many times.
"If you don't mind," she said, her voice carrying clearly through the hall's acoustics, "I'd like to hold this live."
Behind her, Wanda raised one hand slightly. A small camera device rose from her palm and began to float in the air in front of them, orienting itself toward the stage.
Several people in the audience immediately noticed their phones lighting up with notifications—a broadcast link, connecting them to what appeared to be a live stream already going out across the internet.
The technological sophistication wasn't lost on anyone in the room. A floating autonomous camera broadcasting live to a global audience, deployed casually as if it were completely routine.
That miraculous technology was almost certainly Sokovian, multiple people thought simultaneously.
And across the internet, the stream was already filling up rapidly:
[What's happening? Who are these people?]
[No idea, I just got a notification and clicked on it. Now I'm here.]
[Guys, isn't this the world conference that was scheduled for today? The emergency session?]
[Oh you're right, it actually is. Look at the hall.]
[Wait is this being broadcast by THEM? Did Sokovia just hijack the conference feed?]
[Apparently so. Incredible.]
[Is the guy from the video going to appear?]
[I heard Sokovia people were coming today to discuss the Earth situation. Let's see what happens.]
Anastasia waited for the camera to stabilize and the stream numbers to climb, giving people thirty seconds to find the broadcast before she began.
"People of Earth," she said clearly, her voice measured and direct. "Let me introduce myself. My name is Anastasia, and I am the current ruler of Sokovia."
The comments exploded immediately:
[Wait, isn't the ruler supposed to be that man from the video? The one who was talking to the Asgardian queen directly?]
[Are you dense? She's obviously a puppet. He's clearly running things from behind the scenes.]
Anastasia continued without pause, as if she'd anticipated exactly this reaction.
"Perhaps you're curious about the video you've all seen circulating," she said. "The man in that footage—his name is Elric. And most of you have probably already concluded that I'm simply his puppet, a figurehead."
She paused, then added with disarming honesty: "That assessment is not entirely wrong. But it's not entirely right either."
"Think of me as the chief bureaucrat," she explained. "And him as the president who hired me. The difference is that he's a very lazy president—which means in practice, most day-to-day decisions fall under my authority."
"So you can treat my words as his words," she concluded. "My decisions as his decisions. We don't operate on different pages."
The comments had settled into a tense, focused attention.
Anastasia let the moment breathe, then spoke the words she'd come to say.
"I will say this directly, without softening it: Sokovia genuinely does not want to fight Asgard. We are not willing to sacrifice our people in this conflict."
The silence in the hall was immediate and absolute.
Then the comment section detonated:
[WHAT?! So you're just going to run away?! After everything?! You shameless cowards!]
[Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.]
[You could save us and you're choosing NOT to? What kind of monsters ARE you?]
[xxxxxxxxxxxx]
[Every curse word in every language simultaneously appeared in the chat.]
Anastasia didn't flinch. She waited for the initial wave to crest.
"However much you curse at us, however angry you become," she said calmly, "it will not change the fundamental facts. I came here today primarily to ensure that no one holds onto false hope based on incomplete information. It wouldn't be fair to let you believe something that isn't true."
"I hope that you can all make the most of the time remaining," she added.
The comments transformed:
[THE TIME REMAINING?! I haven't even finished watching One Piece! There are like 500 episodes left! I refuse to die like this!]
[I have a movie library that would take two full years to get through at normal watching speed. I did not curate that collection just to leave it unwatched. Absolutely not.]
[I just bought a new gaming PC three weeks ago. Three. Weeks. Ago. I haven't even finished setting it up yet.]
[I was supposed to get married in April. APRIL. That's four months away!]
[Ma'am with respect I will come back as a ghost and HAUNT you specifically if I die without finishing my book series.]
The hall itself had a similar quality of barely contained reaction—people gripping armrests, exchanging desperate glances, the careful diplomatic composure that everyone had maintained through sheer professionalism starting to develop visible cracks.
Tony's jaw was tight. Steve's hand was flat on the table. Fury's expression had gone carefully, dangerously blank.
Anastasia waited again, letting the wave pass.
Then she said: "But it is not impossible either."