"You didn't have to," Wanda said softly. "It's our choice. We choose to protect you."
Tony nodded, his expression deadly serious. "Look at it this way. Before today, you thought you were carrying this burden all by yourself. Now, you know the truth and you've got four people to share it with. We'll handle the stress. You just focus on... well, not getting erased from existence and maybe figuring out what else this crazy castle can do for us." He grinned, a flash of the old Tony. "And don't worry. We'll try not to let the whole 'our best friend is the lynchpin of reality' thing get weird at parties."
"Wait a minute," Tony said slowly, the gears in his head turning audibly. "You said 2025. You've always been specific about that. 'My power will awaken in 2025.' How could you possibly know that? Is there something coming? A specific danger that your power awakens to protect you from? Did you... did you see the future? Like I did?"
The question hung in the air.
Aryan's face, which had been a mask of overwhelming shock, now shifted to something tinged with frustration and an unsettling mystery.
"It's... complicated," Aryan admitted, the lie now needing to be carefully woven. "You have to remember, before any of you were summoned, I was here alone for almost a year. Trying to figure this place out, trying not to go mad."
He looked around the table. "After I bought the Super Soldier Serum for myself, I felt... something else. When the power manifested, there was a presence inside me I couldn't explain. I spent months here, exploring the system's functions. There's another feature, besides the future viewing panel. It's called 'Omniscience.' It's... a query function. You pay a price, you ask the system a direct question and it gives you a direct answer. It's expensive. A billion Origin for a single question."
The sheer cost made even Tony's eyebrows rise.
"During that first year," Aryan continued, "I used that feature. My first question was simple: 'Do I have a hidden power?' The system's answer was 'Yes'. So, I saved up and asked another: 'When will it awaken?' The answer came back: 'In your original, unaltered timeline, your power was destined to awaken in the year 2025.'"
He let that sink in before delivering the most confounding piece of the puzzle. "Naturally, I wanted to see what that event was. I went to the future viewing panel, just like you, Tony. I was willing to pay any price. But when I tried... the system wouldn't allow it. It just gave me a simple message."
He looked up. "The message was: 'The requested timeline is unreachable.'"
"Unreachable?" Tony repeated, latching onto the word. "That's not what it told me. For me, it was a transaction. 'Pay the price, see the show.' What does 'unreachable' even mean? The data is there, or it isn't."
"Perhaps not," T'Challa interjected. "We are dealing with a power that exists outside of time. To it, the past, present and future may be like a landscape it can view. 'Unreachable' might not mean the data doesn't exist. It could mean the path to that data is... blocked. Or fundamentally inaccessible from our current position."
"But why?" Namor demanded. "Why would his past be sealed when Stark's was an open book?"
Tony snapped his fingers, a sudden spark of insight in his eyes. "Because of what just happened! Because of what The Fool just told us! It has to be connected to him being the Anchor." He stood up again, beginning to pace. "Okay, let's brainstorm. We're a room full of geniuses and two kings… no offense, Wanda, you're in a class of your own. We can figure this out. Theory one: The system can't show him his future because his future isn't written yet."
"But it showed you your 'original' future," Wanda pointed out. "Why wouldn't it have an 'original' one for him?"
"Exactly!" Tony exclaimed. "So, the data for his original timeline must exist. The system confirmed it. So why is it unreachable? Maybe... maybe the act of observing an Anchor's timeline is dangerous. Think about it. For a normal person like me, seeing my future creates a ripple. The timeline course corrects. But if the Anchor… the core thread of the whole damn rope… sees his future, maybe the ripple is a tidal wave. Maybe it creates a paradox so severe it could damage the timeline itself. The system isn't refusing him, it's protecting him. And us."
"A plausible hypothesis," T'Challa agreed, stroking his chin. "A cosmic form of quantum observer effect. The act of measurement fundamentally alters the state of the system. For an Anchor, that alteration could be catastrophic."
"Or perhaps," Namor offered, a different perspective coming from his mythological worldview, "it is a test. A true sovereign, a true anchor of fate, must forge his own destiny, not follow a map. To be shown the path would be to invalidate the journey itself. The future is unreachable because he must create it."
The theories were compelling, each one building on the last, painting a picture of Aryan as a fundamental component of their reality.
The mind numbing shock of The Fool's revelation began to be replaced by a sense of awe.
They looked at the man sitting at the table with them… their friend, their ally… and saw something entirely new. He was a being of unique and cosmic importance.
PS: I'm really sorry, guys, for not uploading chapters over the last four days. One of my colleagues was on leave, so we were short on doctors for night duty, and I had to cover his shifts since he covered mine last time, haha.