Chapter 7: Narrator's Throne.
(Mathew's P.O.V)
"What happened to Uatu?" I asked.
Strange didn't answer right away. He took another sip from his cup, eyes fixed on the horizon.
"I don't know," he said finally. "The Watchers live inside the Nexus of Reality. Not exactly a place you send postcards from. His message came through the Information Superrealm."
I blinked. "The what?"
"It's a realm that stores all conscious thought in the universe," he said. "Think of it like… a psychic ocean. You don't go there unless you're desperate. Or reckless."
"I see."
I stood up, letting the wind cut across my face. The sun was rising now, stretching gold across the mountain ridges. My body still felt the scars from Magneto's attack—even if all had faded. I started stretching.
Shoulders, arms, spine.
"Absorb," I muttered. "Absorb. Stronger. Stronger. Invulnerable. Invincible. Flight. Regeneration."
I could feel Strange watching me as my body soaked in energy from the sun and the environment around.
"What exactly are you doing?" he asked.
"Preparing."
"For what?"
I kept stretching, leaning into the sun.
"To face Loki."
Strange stood now. "You can't be serious."
"You know another reality warper who stands a chance against him?" I asked.
"Don't underestimate the Sorcerer Supreme."
I stopped. Turned to face him.
"I don't trust you enough to let you tag along."
Strange didn't flinch. But the tension showed in his jaw.
"I can't risk anyone messing this up," I said. "Loki might be the only person who knows where my wife is. He's mine."
Strange looked down at the cup in his hand, then tossed it aside. It disappeared before it hit the ground.
"I get it," he said. "But this isn't just about your wife. If Loki succeeds, he wipes this entire timeline. That includes everyone. Her. Earth. All of it."
I didn't reply.
"I'm the Sorcerer Supreme," he continued. "That means protecting Earth is my job. Whether you trust me or not."
"Fine," I said. "You can think you're helping. But I'm not depending on anyone. I've figured out everything else. I'll figure out how to reach the end of time."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Even though it's a place that exists outside of time, outside normal space. A point beyond multiversal decay?"
"I'll manage."
Strange sighed and pulled something from under his collar.
A pendant. At the center, glowing faintly, was a green stone.
The Time Stone.
"How about a shortcut?" he asked with an irritating grin.
-0-
Soon, we were flying through a tunnel made of light. No ground, no sky. Just endless bands of time stretched around us—memories, futures, decisions never made, regrets frozen mid-thought.
Strange called it a Time Tunnel.
The trip was going to take a while. We were heading for the end of time itself.
I kept my eyes forward, but my attention stayed locked on the stone around Strange's neck. The Time Stone. The way it pulsed wasn't just power—it was connection. I could feel it. Every iota of time—past, present, and future—tied into that single fragment. It didn't just bend time like I could. It manipulated it. Directly.
It was elegant. Clean. No trauma required.
After my resurrection, things changed. Something cracked open. The limits I'd put on myself because of fear—because of guilt—were gone. Dying had stripped that away. And what came back was bigger than I'd ever known.
I'd spent the entire day after my speech in New York learning how deep the well went.
First thing I did was fix the city.
This time, I didn't strain.
I just knew how to move atoms. I felt them. I saw how they collided, spread, decayed. It wasn't guessing anymore. It was intuition. Like sculpting with light.
With that level of control, it was hard not to think of myself as a god.
But none of that would matter in Loki's realm.
My powers don't work there. Not fully. Because whatever makes up his reality—it isn't atoms. It's story. It's narrative. Information woven into structure.
Still, I wasn't going in unarmed.
My cells were humming with energy. I'd absorbed half a day's worth of sun and refined it through a few thousand modifications. I'd made myself faster. Stronger. Resistant to conceptual attacks. Regenerative on a subatomic level. My vision could now pick apart quarks if I focused hard enough.
But even with all that, I was going up against Loki—who was basically a reality warper on steroids.
I didn't care.
This was for Jules.
Strange turned slightly ahead of me. "We're close. Once we exit, expect resistance. Loki will know we're coming."
"Good," I said. "I've got a lot of pent-up rage to vent."
My eyes lit up green as the end of the tunnel came into view.
We burst out of it a second later.
And into a wasteland.
The realm looked like the trash heap of the multiverse—broken timelines stacked like junk metal, dead stars floating like burnt-out lamps, ruins of realities stitched together by force.
Then came the sound.
Screeching. Growling.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of twisted, green-skinned monsters surged out from the broken ground. Their bodies were malformed, eyes glowing, teeth wrong.
They came for us.
I didn't hesitate.
Green lasers exploded from my eyes, carving a line of destruction straight through the swarm. The monsters screamed and fell apart in chunks.
I rose into the air, scanning the sky for what I knew was already watching.
"Come out, Loki," I shouted. "Come out, you serpent!"
(General P.O.V)
"Mathew, wait!" Strange shouted—but it was too late.
A bolt of lightning tore down from the swirling sky above, striking the ground with enough force to shake the air. The clouds rolled like liquid shadow, and out of them, a face emerged. Massive. Grotesque. Its mouth a swirling vortex of energy, its eyes wild and endless.
The Monster at the End of Time.
Mathew didn't stop.
He hovered, body glowing faintly as he raised his chin to the sky. The lightning struck him full force.
It didn't even scorch his skin.
Without a word, Mathew shot upward, glowing brighter with each passing second. He spun as he ascended, becoming a streak of light as he plunged straight into the creature's open mouth.
Strange stood below, back turned to a wall of monsters clawing against his shield. The barrier cracked with each impact. His face was tight, focus split between holding the shield and watching the storm.
"Come on, come on," he muttered. "Remember why you're doing this…"
The cloud turned toward him, drawn to the last target.
Then it stopped.
Beams of golden light pierced it from within.
An instant later, the monster exploded—ripped apart by a pulse of solar energy so intense it erased the dark from the sky.
When the smoke cleared, Mathew hovered in the air.
He wasn't the same.
His body radiated light. Not burning. Not fire. Controlled. Solar perfection. A sun in human form.
Strange exhaled.
Mathew reoriented. Then he dropped.
A golden streak.
He tore through the remains of the monster's army, crashing into the ground at hypersonic speed. The impact vaporized a crater and sent a shockwave that obliterated the front ranks.
He kept going.
Explosive beams shot from his hands, wiping out clusters. His momentum whipped up tornadoes of pure kinetic energy, spiraling through the ranks of creatures. They screamed. They fell. And in minutes—only minutes—they were gone.
Silence fell.
Ahead, revealed by the fading dust, was a castle.
It floated above the ruins, suspended by nothing, held in place by something more than gravity. Above it, a twisting emerald storm churned slowly. From the tallest spire of the castle, strands of glowing green light flowed upward into the cloud—hundreds, maybe thousands of them.
Timeline strings.
Mathew's enhanced vision zoomed in.
There, at the highest throne, surrounded by a tangle of luminous threads, sat Loki.
He looked relaxed. At ease. Fingers tapping on the armrest like a conductor waiting for the right note.
Strange flew down beside Mathew, his eyes locked on the castle.
"That's it," he said. "All timelines converge here. Every one of them. Those strings—each one's a universe. If we break even one…"
"Whole universe dies," Mathew said, nodding. "Got it."
He floated higher. "I'll try to draw him away. Keep him off the castle."
"I'll cover your back."
Mathew's body lit up again as he surged forward, streaking gold against the green sky.
Then it hit him.
A hammer.
It crashed into him mid-flight, knocking him backward and slamming him into the cracked earth hard enough to make Strange flinch.
He groaned, dust rising from the crater he made.
Strange dropped beside him.
Ahead, descending from the air and stepping into formation, were the Avengers. Controlled versions of the iconic team by the way they stood too still.
Thor.
Iron Man.
Captain Marvel.
Hawkeye. Hulk. Black Panther.
All of them.
Standing in their path.
Above them, on the throne within the castle, Loki smiled wide. His fingers moved through the strings like a puppeteer.
He laughed.
"This," he said, "is about to be very entertaining."