Getting to London was a masterclass in supernatural logistics. Rosen didn't bother with the TSA, overpriced terminal coffee, or the nightmare of a coach-class seat. Instead, he opted for the cargo hold of a red-eye flight out of JFK.
The cargo hold was a cavern of pressurized silence, smelling faintly of pallet wood, hydraulic fluid, and chilled air. Every few minutes, the massive engines of the Boeing 747 would let out a low, rhythmic thrum that vibrated through the steel deck and into Rosen's bones. He'd used Gale Step to slip past the ground crew, Blink to bypass the locked hatch, and once inside, he'd settled into a dark corner to trigger Shadow Fade.
As long as the sun was down, he was invisible. He leaned back against a crate of high-end electronics, his breathing slow and steady. He had his System space stocked with bottled water and a few sandwiches from a deli in Queens, so the seven-hour flight was more of a meditation than a struggle. Even the thin air and sub-zero temperatures at thirty thousand feet didn't bother him; his Watcher template gave him the physical resilience of an elf, making him far tougher than any ordinary human.
"If the engines give out," he mused, looking at the vibrating walls, "I've always got a Town Portal Scroll. $320,000 for a trip home is a hell of a lot better than a nose-dive into the Atlantic."
But the flight was smooth. By the time the plane touched down at Heathrow, the pre-dawn London fog was beginning to roll across the tarmac. Rosen slipped out the same way he'd entered, vanishing into the mist long before the first baggage handler could crack the hold.
London was older than New York, and it felt like it. The air was heavier, smelling of damp stone and history. Rosen didn't need a taxi; he used a combination of Blink and Gale Step, moving through the streets like a glitch in reality. Within minutes, he was standing across from the massive, neoclassical facade of the British Museum.
He wasn't here for the Rosetta Stone or the Elgin Marbles. He was here for something much more practical: a "farming tool" from Benin.
In his 'prophet' memories, he remembered a scene from the movie Black Panther. The villain, Erik Killmonger, and the arms dealer Ulysses Klaue would eventually hit this place in 2016 to steal a Vibranium artifact. But that was ten years in the future. Rosen didn't have ten years. He needed that Vibranium now to stabilize his Arcane Core.
It was daytime, and the museum was swarming with tourists. Rosen found a quiet, unmanned corner behind a row of hedges and pulled three mechanical mice from his System storage. These weren't the cheap $5,000 scout models; he'd tinkered with them, adding dampened motor gears for silence.
"Go find it," he whispered.
He closed his eyes, his mind splitting into a three-way "God's-eye view" as the mice scurried through the cracks beneath the museum's service doors.
The infiltration was harder than the hit on Fisk Tower. Two of the mice were spotted within minutes—not by high-tech sensors, but by a cleaning lady with a broom and a sharp-eyed security guard. Unlike a gangster's lair where guards were looking for gunmen, a museum was obsessed with pests. A single mouse in a gallery was treated like a security breach because of the potential damage to the exhibits.
"Note to self," Rosen thought, twitching his fingers to guide the third mouse behind a marble pedestal. "Museum guards are way more observant than mob enforcers. They actually care about the dust."
Eventually, he found it. The Benin exhibit was tucked away in the West Africa wing. The "farming tool" was an unassuming piece of dark, matte metal, but to Rosen's magically-attuned senses, it practically hummed. It was pure, raw Vibranium, disguised as a primitive artifact.
"Gotcha."
He withdrew the mice, guiding them back to his location through the ventilation ducts. He had the layout. He had the guard rotations. Now, he just had to wait for the sun to drop.
With hours to kill, Rosen decided to lay low. He didn't want to leave a trail in London, so he stayed away from the high-traffic tourist spots. But as he was preparing to head toward a nearby park to rest, a figure in the distance caught his eye.
She was walking toward the museum, dressed in a sharp, professional trench coat. Even from fifty feet away, her beauty was striking—a timeless, ethereal quality that made the people around her seem like blurred background noise.
Wait. Is that Sersi?
Rosen's pulse quickened. He recognized her instantly as one of the Eternals. In the movies, she worked at the London Natural History Museum, but it made sense she'd be here for a cross-departmental meeting.
His mind immediately began calculating the threat level. The Eternals were essentially high-functioning robots created by the Celestials. They'd lived on Earth for seven thousand years, staying out of human conflicts while waiting for the "Emergence"—the birth of a new Celestial that would eventually destroy the planet.
"These guys are the biggest wildcards in the deck," Rosen thought, narrowing his eyes. "If they decide I'm a threat to their mission, I'm in deep trouble. My current level isn't anywhere near 'Celestial-tier' yet."
But then, a darker thought crossed his mind. The Eternals were currently fractured. They hadn't seen each other in centuries. If he needed to eliminate a few to prevent the Emergence later, or just to clear the board, now was the time. Especially a certain few members whose "holier-than-thou" attitude had always rubbed him the wrong way back in his old world.
"Maybe later," he decided, watching Sersi disappear through the museum's main doors. "I don't need a war with ancient robots while I'm still trying to build a battery."
Rosen moved away from the museum, looking for a place to squat for the afternoon. He was passing a quiet residential street when he spotted another familiar face.
This one wasn't a god. It was someone much more human, but in some ways, more dangerous to his current anonymity.
She was young—maybe nineteen or twenty. She had blonde hair pulled back in a practical ponytail and was dressed like a typical college student, carrying a messenger bag full of books. She was walking with a purposeful stride, her eyes scanning the street with an intensity that most people wouldn't notice.
Sharon Carter.
Rosen stopped, blending into the shadows of a doorway. He recognized her as Agent 13, the niece of the legendary Peggy Carter. According to his internal timeline, she shouldn't be a high-ranking SHIELD agent yet. She was likely still a student, perhaps attending a prestigious university in London to sharpen her skills before officially joining her aunt's legacy.
"She's naive," Rosen noted, watching her. "But she's got the bloodline. Look at her check her six."
Indeed, as Sharon approached a street corner, she slowed down, her hand moving toward her bag as she cast a quick, subtle glance at the reflection in a shop window. She sensed something.
Rosen grinned. He activated Gale Step, becoming a ripple in the morning air. He followed her for several blocks, staying high on the rooftops or tucked into the narrow gaps between the Georgian townhouses. Sharon was good—she even tried to "dry-clean" herself by looping around a corner and waiting in a blind spot to see if anyone followed.
But Rosen wasn't anyone. He was a ghost.
He tracked her all the way to the outskirts of a wealthy neighborhood, where the houses were replaced by sprawling stone manors hidden behind iron gates and thick ivy. Sharon pulled out a key and let herself through a side gate of a particularly exquisite manor. It was old, dignified, and practically screamed "British Intelligence."
Rosen perched on a stone chimney across the street, looking down at the house. A realization hit him.
"Wait a second... a manor in London? A Carter niece coming and going with a key?"
He looked at the front door, where a brass plaque caught the sunlight.
"This isn't just a safe house," he whispered, his eyes widening. "This is where Peggy lives. The Director of SHIELD herself is probably sitting in that parlor having tea."
His interest, which had been purely professional a moment ago, suddenly skyrocketed. If he could get into that house, he wouldn't just be finding artifacts. He'd be stepping into the heart of the world's most powerful intelligence agency.
He checked his Mana. Radiance Aura was humming, his pool was nearly full.
"Well," Rosen grinned, "the museum can wait. Let's see what the First Lady of Espionage keeps in her sock drawer."