Arthur's grip tightened, and with a sudden, sharp snap, a pair of obsidian wings unfurled from his back.
The acceleration was instantaneous. He became a blur of lethal light, a sonic boom echoing across the peaks as he slammed the Red Skull into the mountain wall with enough force to spiderweb the ancient stone.
"Mordo!" Arthur roared.
A circular gateway of orange sparks hissed into existence beside them. Before Mordo even stepped through, a strand of living golden light leaped from the portal, lashing around the Red Skull like a viper. It coiled around his limbs, layer by layer, binding his very essence.
Mordo stepped out, his hands held in a complex mudra. "He's anchored."
The team closed in. Peter Parker leaned forward, his lenses zooming in and out as he studied the prisoner. "What is this guy? He keeps toggling between physical and energy states. It's like trying to grab smoke."
"Which is why you don't use hands," Mordo said, his voice strained with the effort of the spell. "You use intent."
"Magic is seriously cool," Peter whispered, half-impressed, half-terrified.
Steve Rogers stepped into the light. He looked down at the face that had haunted his nightmares since the 1940s, his expression a heavy mask of history and regret. "We meet again."
The Red Skull tilted his head, his crimson skin gleaming in the dying light. He looked at Steve, then at Arthur, and let out a dry, rattling chuckle. "Old friends reunited. Is there truly a need for such... intensity... right at the start?"
Arthur didn't indulge him. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low vibrate. "You're right. I'll try to be gentler from here on out, but you won't be alive to enjoy the change of pace."
With a flick of his will, Arthur forced the Red Skull into the void of his Disassemble Space. The specter vanished instantly.
But a second later, the triumph on Arthur's face curdled. His eyes went wide, then narrowed into a look of sheer confusion.
"Arthur?" Steve asked, sensing the shift. "What happened?"
Arthur shook his head, his brow furrowed in a deep, troubled V. "Something's wrong. Something is very wrong."
"Talk to us," Wanda urged, her hands still humming with power.
Arthur didn't answer. He couldn't. The logic of his own power was suddenly screaming at him. "Stay here," he commanded, his voice distant. "Wait for me. I need to see something. I'll be back."
Before they could protest, he flickered out of existence.
When he reappeared, he was standing on the precipice of a high, lonely altar, a platform at the very edge of the world. The sky above was a bruised, blood-red void, utterly drained of light. Arthur walked to the edge and looked down into the bottomless abyss of Vormir.
Then, without a word, he stepped off.
The wind didn't just howl; it screamed. As he fell, the reality of the mountain began to tear like wet paper. The scenes before his eyes didn't just flash, they consumed him.
One moment, he was back in the mud and blood of the World War, the scent of gunpowder choking him. The next, he was in the quiet, sun-drenched warmth of a life with Li Lily, the smell of her hair more real than the air in his lungs. Then came the madness, the cold, screaming vacuum of space, his body being torn apart and stitched back together by the Tesseract's chaotic energy.
He was drowning in it. The cycle of memory became a whirlpool, dragging his consciousness deeper until he forgot the mountain, forgot the mission, and forgot himself.
The world flashed white.
He was sitting in a chair.
It was a cheap, ergonomic office chair. In front of him was a cluttered desk, and on that desk sat a glowing computer monitor.
His hand was on a mouse. On the screen was a familiar game interface, a character standing on a pixelated street corner next to a machine. A label hovered over it:
Disassemble Price: 1,000 Gold!
In the corner of the screen, a small media player window was open, looping a high-definition clip from Avengers: Infinity War.
On the screen, Thanos stood on the edge of a cliff. He turned, his face a mask of twisted grief, and hurled Gamora into the void.
The scene played out in agonizing slow motion, tragic, beautiful, and steeped in a despair that felt far too much like home.
Arthur gasped, his lungs burning as if he'd been underwater for an eternity. His hand shot out, reflexively grabbing a cold can of cola on the desk. He took a long, desperate gulp of the sugary "otaku fuel," the carbonation stinging his throat.
"What... what is wrong with me?"
He felt untethered, drifting in the wake of a vast, hollow dream. He jolted upright, his mind spinning as he tried to pin down the date, the year, anything.
"I... I was dreaming?"
Arthur rubbed his face, trying to scrub away the lingering fog, then shook his head violently. "No. This isn't right. Something is fundamentally broken here. How could such a cheap, clichéd 'it was all a dream' ending happen to me? It's insulting."
He stood up, the chair scraping harshly against the floor. Two strides took him across the small room to the window.
This was home.
The layout was etched into his soul, a map he could navigate blindfolded, despite the decades he'd spent in the Marvel universe. He grabbed the heavy fabric of the curtain and yanked. With a sharp whoosh, the fabric gave way, and blinding sunlight flooded the room, instantly vaporizing the gloom.
Everything was exactly as he remembered it. Every stain, every scuff.
"Was it really just a dream?"
He turned back, his gaze scanning the sanctuary of his old life. The messy bed, the cluttered desk, the pile of laundry in the corner, socks scattered like casualties of a lazy afternoon... and the photograph on the bedside table.
One of the few photos he'd ever bothered to keep.
He looked miserable in it, he'd always hated being in front of a lens. He walked over, picking up the frame, his thoughts drifting. A soft, weary sigh escaped him.
"What are you trying to tell me?"
He didn't know who he was addressing, or if anyone was even listening. He wasn't surprised when no one answered. He just stood there, his voice regaining its edge.
"That day, the day I vanished from this room, the day it all started, you've recreated it well. Almost perfectly. But you made one glaring mistake."
He looked at the computer screen.
"When I crossed over, Avengers: Infinity War wasn't out on digital. You couldn't just watch it on a home setup; it was still in theaters. That scene you showed me, the one with Gamora... that was just my own mind filling in the blanks right before I stepped off the cliff on Vormir. You misunderstood my memories. The day I left this world, I wasn't watching Thanos. I was watching Iron Man."
A flaw. A crack in the foundation.
Arthur had noticed it the moment he arrived in this room, but for a heartbeat, he hadn't wanted to shatter the illusion. The peace was seductive.
But as he looked at the photograph, the truth hit him like a physical blow. Here, in this room, he was utterly alone. In that other world, the 'dream', he had allies, a woman he loved, and a purpose that shook the pillars of heaven.
Here, he had a dusty photo of a lonely man.
His vision blurred, a heat rising behind his eyes. Arthur closed them tight, his brow furrowing in a mask of cold fury.
"Even if you can see into my soul, what does it matter? I am here. I have arrived. Now, are you prepared to welcome me... or are you prepared to die trying to stop me?"
He snapped his eyes open.
A resplendent, piercing light ignited in his pupils. The space around him groaned, twisting and splintering like shattered glass.
The roar of the wind returned. The abyss of Vormir rushed up to meet him, the ground rising like a hammer, but Arthur didn't slow his descent. He didn't brace for impact. Instead, he screamed into the void:
"The Red Skull isn't in your reach! I put him in the Disassemble Space, a void isolated from your reality, beyond your grasp! So tell me, what was the point of all this theater?!"
In his ears, something ancient and primal roared back in a fit of celestial rage.
In the next heartbeat, the world fractured.
The howling wind vanished. The looming impact dissolved. The blood-red sky of Vormir and the cramped bedroom in China both evaporated into nothingness.
Arthur's eyes snapped open again.
He was standing upright in the middle of the spaceship's briefing room. He looked around at the faces of his team, Steve, Thor, Wanda.
The protective amulets hanging around their necks were pulsing with a frantic, rhythmic light, yet not a single soul in the room seemed to notice.
(End of chapter)
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