"I won…" I simply said. "Shin is no longer a problem. We only have to worry about the rest of the universe."
"And what about Belasco?" Fury asked. "Last I checked, we still have a society of mutants down there to liberate. That motherfucker is going to be on a tear now that his only son and main opposition are dead."
I didn't disagree. "He's first on the bucket list, right after I deal with all this and install some much-needed protection to safeguard the planet, at least temporarily."
"Safeguard?" Fury said suspiciously. "What do you mean by safeguard?"
A fresh Sentinel army housed in several planetoids orbiting Earth would be my preference, but I knew Fury would never sign off on that. Neither would the World Council. Instead, I told him what he wanted to hear.
"The armors, of course," I said. "I'll give everyone an update, even the agents, and maybe hand out a few more low-level models to your inner circle."
"The World Council will appreciate the gesture," Fury said diplomatically, "as do I."
I waved away the thanks, turning my attention to New York at large. My perception crept over every inch of it. People were mostly out of danger now, but the city was in shambles despite my repairs.
"How long do you think it'll take to get the city up and running again?" I asked Fury.
"With the heroes and the Novans helping, weeks, maybe even months. Entire stretches of the subway need to be repaired. Repairing the infrastructure will take substantially longer. The contracts will need to be awarded and renegotiated. The city still hasn't fully recovered from the last invasion."
"So, years then?" I asked him.
"Yes," Fury conceded.
"What if I could snap my fingers and make all of that go away?" I asked.
"What?"
"Time Magic," I explained to the director. "I had to become very good at it in an incredibly short period of time or die a horrible death to Shin. I'm saying I can put New York back together again in seconds and probably save you billions of dollars in construction costs."
Fury sucked his teeth and looked at me. "Both sides of the political spectrum will probably chew you out for taking away jobs from blue-collar workers."
"I'd expect them to," I said.
"And you won't get any cover from me," he said.
Whenever have I expected that?
"That's fine."
"Do it then," he said, and I nodded, a jolt of excitement running through me.
My AI had theorized that it was possible. It would require a truly massive array that froze everybody in New York in place while it rewound the environment around them. Luckily, we were only going back a few minutes.
And to pull it off, I was going to need the help of multiple heroes. So I patched us all through via the wrist telepathic runes built into their armor.
"Attention, everyone," I said. "It's Dante…and I need your help to fix the city."
The greetings poured in. Some were vocal, others were impressions and emotions. Pietro was the loudest by far.
"Dude!" Pietro greeted, "It's great to hear your voice. We feared the worst after your disappearance. Did everybody else come with you, or are they still fighting?"
My throat went dry. I didn't quite know how to tell him that the X-Men, my Sentinels, Rin, and a good number of Widows and friends were lost to us for now.
"I'll tell you all about it later," I said. "But for now, we've got a city to save."
"No offense, Dante, but the city is already safe. Your girlfriend literally turned the bad guy into ash. It was pretty epic. You should've been there," Jessica Jones said.
"He's not talking about the people in the city," Jean said. "He's talking about the city itself."
Even from several boroughs away, without a single telepathic word sent, Jean and I knew each other well enough to read our intentions instantly.
And somehow, I got the sense that she already knew about what happened in the dimension. I gave Jean the equivalent of a mental arm squeeze that only she, and maybe Sentry, could perceive.
There would be time for grieving and explanations later. Nearly everybody on the telepathic network had lost somebody to this tragedy.
I gave the explanation of my plan, and the protests came immediately, and from the usual suspects.
The Chinese GDF agent spoke up first. "You mean to change the landscape of arguably the most important city in your country with experimental magic, without the express permission of your government and leaders?"
"That's the general idea behind the secret huddle," Tony quipped. "You gotta admit, bureaucracy is a bitch, whatever country or planet you come from. I'll have gray hairs by the time they get around to construction. And not to mention the costs."
"I know the people in Hell's Kitchen and Brooklyn would sure as hell appreciate you being so proactive," Jessica said. Her apartment had apparently been hit by the rampage of the altered, so maybe her motives were not completely altruistic, but they were true nonetheless. "Most of them are uninsured."
Daredevil hummed. "From a legal perspective, there are no set laws against large-scale time manipulation, especially if it benefits the people of New York."
"That's all well and good, but the government won't need laws if they decide to come after you," Captain America said, earning him the telepathic equivalent of surprised looks. He shrugged. "I saw it when I served, and I see it today. I'm not blind to the imperfections of the United States."
"I don't think they'll risk it coming off such a public win," Tony said. "I mean, he and his team helped stop a massive invasion and helped in the rescue effort."
"The invasion wouldn't have happened in the first place if it weren't for him," The Chinese agent countered.
And Tony scoffed. "You have read the briefings about Shin? He was always going to fuck us. He's the reason why we stand a chance at all."
"It doesn't matter if that's the truth," The British GDN agent said, "the pundits will say whatever the government tells them to say."
"And they'll be an inconvenience at best. The world needs us," I said, "as much as the World Council and the various heads of states and cabinets wished otherwise. They won't antagonize us if they don't have to."
"Midgardian politics confounds me," Hogun muttered.
Fendral laughed. "I thought I was the only one."
"Officially, I have to tell you that this is a bad idea," Clint said with a hint of amusement in his voice.
"Seconded," Natasha chimed in.
"You'd be shouting to the galaxy that you had the Infinity Stones," Lady Sif said. "Demons won't be your only enemies. The other great empires and civilizations have spies on your planet. They will hear about this."
"I'm well aware," I said.
"Your mind is clearly made up," John Walker said. "What do you need us to do?"
It took me minutes to fabricate five thousand or so orbs programmed to help me with the time spell, and I enlisted the help of Jean and Sentry to put the minds of every person in the city at ease.
The psychokinetic brute was surprised by the request, but I figured he had to start his training somewhere, and power was no object to him.
Pietro helped me with the precise placement of the orbs, and Tony created a powerful scrambler to block out all observable scanners so that the government and the Novans couldn't watch me do Time Magic—not that the agents wouldn't rat me out.
The rest of the heroes were there for moral support and to watch. The Asgardians seemed the most interested in my runes.
True Form.
TIME STOP.
The world turned dull, static-tinged green and froze over. Only the heroes who had been pre-marked by the orbs were spared.
The rest of the orbs unwound at once. Billions upon billions of repeating runes poured out. They split into two separate sets of runic formulas. One touched and anchored the people frozen to the present. The other spread out like a web, blanketing infrastructure, roads, cars, merchandise, and so much more.
My palm turned anticlockwise, and I burned energy like it was rocket fuel. It was like watching a video play in reverse, except more surreal and awe-inspiring.
Masonry darted back into the air, gluing itself to stone walls so precisely that the cracks receded. Cars unflipped, reinflated themselves, and drove back up the street before coming to an abrupt dead halt. Lamp posts swung back upright, glass unshattered, and a million other small things followed.
For the finishing touch, I moved people out of the path of danger so that rewound items and structures didn't hurt them, and I had Jean cast another mass mental spell. It was designed to help people get over the absurdity of what had just happened.
It wouldn't hold out forever. But it should last just long enough to get this crisis sorted.
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