The desert was merciless.
The sun hung overhead like a hammer, beating down on the endless sand with relentless fury. The air shimmered with heat, distorting the horizon into liquid mirages. Sand filled every crack and crevice, and the wind, when it came, brought no relief, only more heat and more sand.
A sandstorm had rolled through an hour ago, the kind that could strip flesh from bone. Most living things had sought shelter.
The Maker walked through it without stopping.
He didn't rest. He didn't slow. His mind was far too occupied to pay attention to physical discomfort anyway.
Reed Richards, or rather, the man he had become, the man from a universe where idealism had curdled into something colder and harder, walked through the Egyptian desert at a measured pace.
His mind was working.
Data point one, he thought, his consciousness sorting through the information he'd collected from the invasion of his universe. Nine invaders. Nine distinct power signatures. Nine separate dimensional origins.
That was the first interesting thing.
They weren't from the same universe. He had confirmed that much. Each of the nine came from a different reality, variants, all of them, of beings that existed across multiple timelines: the Black Skull, Sadurang, Apocalypse, the Iron Inquisitor, the Berserker, Uranos, the Ghost Goblin, the Dark Phoenix, Victor von Doom.
Data point two: Mephisto.
It was obvious, once you saw the pattern. The fingerprints of the Hell Lord were all over this operation: the demonic enhancement, the dimensional travel capabilities. But there was not one Mephisto. That was the elegant horror of it.
Nine variants of Mephisto, the Maker theorized, his mind stretching around the concept, each recruiting one champion from their respective universe, each contributing resources, knowledge, and power to a collective effort. A consortium of Hell Lords pooling their considerable multiversal influence toward a single unified objective.
It was, he had to admit, brilliant.
The sandstorm picked up again, and the Maker simply adjusted the polarization on his visor and kept walking.
Data point three: the targeting.
It was obvious they had gone after the Avengers first and most deliberately. But why? He had watched the footage frame by frame, analyzed the tactical decisions made during the invasion of his universe.
Doom had deviated, going after him personally, driven by their long history of rivalry. It wasn't purely strategic. It was personal.
Apocalypse had similarly deviated, going after mutants with what could only be described as ideological fervor, his own agenda bleeding into the mission.
Norman Osborn had pursued Spider-Man with obsessive focus that went beyond tactical necessity. Personal again.
But strip away the personal vendettas, the Maker thought, and what remains? The Avengers. Always the Avengers. In every universe, in every incursion, the Avengers were the primary target. The rest was noise.
He walked for another mile, calculating.
Why the Avengers specifically?
He turned the question over in his mind, examining it from every angle. The Avengers weren't the most powerful beings in any given universe. There were always cosmic entities, abstract forces, elder gods that dwarfed them. So raw power wasn't the answer.
Stabilizing force, the Maker concluded, his footsteps never faltering. The Avengers function as a stabilizing force across the multiverse. Not because of their power, but because of what they represent: a convergence point. A nexus of heroic probability. In universe after universe, when catastrophe threatens on a cosmic scale, it is the Avengers who respond. They are the immune system of their respective realities.
Remove the immune system, he thought coldly, and the body becomes vulnerable to infection.
But vulnerable to what infection? That was the question that nagged at him.
Something big, the Maker thought. Something multiversal in scale. Something that required not just one universe to be destabilized, but many. Perhaps all of them.
He ran the calculations again. The energy required to rewrite a single universe was beyond comprehension. To rewrite the multiverse, to fundamentally alter the structure of all reality—
Is that what they're planning? he thought. To rewrite the multiverse itself?
It fit the data. It fit the scale of the operation, the resources invested, the number of universes targeted. If Mephisto—nine Mephistos—wanted to reshape existence itself, they would need to destabilize it.
The Avengers weren't just targets. They were obstacles. Structural supports that needed to be removed before the building could be demolished and rebuilt.
But how? the Maker thought. What mechanism would allow for multiversal rewriting? What tool, what weapon, what cosmic artifact could possibly—
The answer eluded him, and he didn't like it. Reed Richards—any version of him—didn't enjoy incomplete equations.
He ran another calculation, this one focused on why he'd ended up in this particular universe, in this time period. What cosmic force had sent him here? There had to be a reason.
His scanners had flagged it weeks ago. The mystery spectrum was astronomically stronger here than in any other universe he'd measured. By several orders of magnitude.
As if it originated here, the Maker thought, his mind firing rapidly. As if this universe is the source point. The wellspring from which mystical spectrum propagates outward across the multiverse.
He turned that over carefully. If the mystery spectrum was stronger here, and if Mephisto's plan somehow involved using the spectrum—
Then this universe isn't just another target, the Maker concluded. It's the primary objective. Everything else has been preparation.
He stopped walking.
There, in the distance, the Nile glittered silver in the brutal sunlight. Along its shores, villages dotted the landscape: mud-brick buildings, cultivated fields.
The Maker studied it for a moment.
He began walking toward the Nile, his mind already composing his first approach.
He wondered who the target was here in this universe, if there was a version of the Avengers in this distant past of Earth.
He needed to find out.
Carefully, he thought. Very, very carefully.
==========
The Maker walked through the village, drawing many stares.
It was expected. Children stopped playing. Women paused in their work. Men reached for their weapons instinctively.
But what was more interesting, far more interesting, was what the Maker noticed on some of their faces.
Recognition.
Intriguing, he thought, analyzing it immediately. They know this face. They've seen it before. Which means Reed Richards of this universe was here, in this time period, in this region.
More data.
He was still processing that when what appeared to be the village leader emerged from the largest building, a broad-shouldered middle-aged man with a weathered face and the bearing of someone who had survived wars. He was flanked by several men carrying weapons, spears and curved blades.
The leader looked at the Maker for a long moment, studying his face.
"Richards," the man said.
Oh, he knows me. The Maker kept his expression neutral. Intriguing indeed.
"Yes," the Maker said carefully. "How do you know me?"
The man's expression shifted to something warmer, not quite relief, but recognition of an ally. He explained that they had met over a decade ago. He had been one of the many sheltered in Khonshu's sanctuary, part of the rebellion against the false pharaoh, Rama-Tut, the tyrant who had enslaved the region and called himself a god.
"I see," the Maker said, storing every detail.
The man continued, explaining that Richards had fought alongside them and had helped turn the tide. He then straightened and said that a friend of Ta-Khetu was a friend of theirs. He asked if the Emerald God had sent him as an emissary, if he had come to meet the priestess Khenmet.
The Maker smiled warmly, a carefully constructed expression forming on his face. "Yes. Yes, I am."
That night, they threw a feast in honor of his arrival.
The Maker ate little but observed everything. He learned a great deal from them.
By the end of the evening, he had confirmed his theory. Reed Richards of this Earth, along with Ben, Susan, and Johnny, had time-traveled here and been part of this rebellion against the tyrant pharaoh. They had fought alongside a being they called Ta-Khetu, the Emerald God, who wielded green light and flew through the sky like a falcon. The pharaoh had been defeated, and Richards had played a part in that victory.
The thought of Susan, Ben, and Johnny brought a sour taste to the Maker's mouth.
His Susan. His team. His family, before they betrayed him.
He became aware of the stares directed at his face during the feast. Several of the older warriors kept looking at him with confusion, whispering to each other.
One of the bolder ones asked directly, gesturing at his face, at the burn scars that covered the left side of his jaw and neck. The marks Johnny Storm had left on him in their final confrontation.
"You look different."
"Richards had no such marks."
He explained that he had gotten them during a battle.
They accepted this.
That night, the Maker sat alone in the shelter they had provided for him and worked carefully to change his face to match how Reed had looked in this world. His scars were hidden. His features subtly altered.
He left that very night, heading toward the city of Pe.
The journey took three days on foot and by boat along the Nile. The Maker used every hour productively.
His scanners worked constantly, mapping the energy signatures of this world with growing astonishment.
Demonic energy, multiple ancient signatures clustered in certain regions. Dimensional breaches, poorly healed, leaking energy. Celestial energy residue in at least four separate locations. Asgardian mystical signatures. Phoenix Force residue that seemed to permeate the very atmosphere.
It was as if this world was under constant siege by forces from every corner of existence.
And yet it stands, the Maker thought with genuine curiosity. Whatever protects this world is remarkably effective.
He arrived in Pe to immediate recognition at the main temple. He requested an audience with Khenmet, and it was readily granted.
He was led to a temple, not the largest building in the city, but perhaps the most important.
"Reed Richards," a woman in white clothes said as she approached with a smile.
The Maker matched her smile. "Though not the one you know."
Khenmet's smile faded. "Explain."
So he told her. The truth, or half of it, carefully selected. He told her how he had arrived here, displaced from his own universe. He told her of the attack on his Earth, nine invaders of extraordinary power who had dismantled the greatest heroes of his world methodically and completely. He told her of the interdimensional nature of the threat, of the pattern he'd identified across multiple universes.
He did not tell her what he had been in his universe. What he had done. What he had become.
The Moon Knight, Khonshu's avatar who stood silently in the corner throughout, believed him. The god's servant had eyes that could see through many deceptions, but apparently not all.
Khenmet listened to everything without interrupting. When he finished, she was quiet for a long moment.
"It seems the Avengers are needed here," she said finally.
So there is a variant of the team here, in this time period, he thought, his mind accelerating immediately. Active, functional, recognized by their own name.
"Tell me about them," he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.
As Khenmet called upon her god and they waited, she told him.
She told him of Max, the Green Lantern, the leader of the Avengers. The Maker immediately recognized what that meant. This man had harnessed the mystery spectrum as Doom had.
She told him of Firehair, the host of the Phoenix; Odin, the exiled Asgardian prince; Azzuri, the Black Panther, king of Wakanda; En Sabah Nur, a great hero of these lands; Ghost and his mammoth Tasi; Fan Fei of K'un-Lun, the Iron Fist; Vnn, the primal warrior of the Savage Lands; and Agamotto, the Sorcerer Supreme.
The Maker listened to all of it, and as Khenmet spoke, he found himself recalibrating every assumption he had brought with him.
A user of the mystery spectrum. A Phoenix host. The All-Father himself when he was younger. The Black Panther. A younger Apocalypse. The first Sorcerer Supreme. The first Iron Fist. A man who held the power of the Starbrand. And a Ghost Rider.
The Sorcerer Supreme alone, he thought, outclasses every Avenger save their leader.
Add in the other eight—
This was perhaps the most powerful variant of the Avengers ever assembled.
Which means, he concluded, that whatever Mephisto is planning for this universe, he is going to bring everything he has.
It did not take much time for two members of the Avengers to arrive.
It was the leader, the user of the mystery spectrum, and the host of the Phoenix herself.
As soon as they arrived, many in the temple began chanting.
"Ta-Khetu! Ta-Khetu!" they called out, their voices rising with reverence and joy.
"Reed," the Maker heard the man call out, his voice carrying genuine surprise as he walked forward.
The Maker put on a smile. "I'm told by the priestess that you met another variant of me."
"Oh," Max said, slowing slightly as he studied the Maker's face. "You are not that Reed."
"No," the Maker confirmed simply. "I am not."
"Did something happen to your universe?" Max asked, his green eyes sharp and assessing. Behind him, Firehair said nothing, but her gaze was equally penetrating and considerably more unsettling.
"Yes," the Maker said. He paused, letting the weight of it show on his face, grief carefully constructed. "My universe was invaded. Nine entities." He looked down briefly. "Susan. Ben. Johnny. They—" He stopped, as if the words were too difficult to finish.
"And then as they killed you," Max said softly, "you woke up here."
The Maker looked up. "How did you know?"
"A man called Tony Stark arrived here the same way," Firehair said. Her voice was measured, calm, but her eyes never stopped evaluating him. "His universe was attacked as well."
Is it the Tony Stark from my universe? That would be trouble—
"What universe is he from?" the Maker asked carefully.
"Not yours," Max said. "Reed Richards doesn't exist in his world."
The Maker smiled. "I see."
"This universe is in danger now," the Maker said, leaning forward with an urgency that required no fabrication. "They will come here."
"We know," Max said. "But we'll take all the help we can get." He studied the Maker for another moment. "I'm sure you have your theories."
The Maker smiled. "I have many."
"Then we should go," Max said. "The others need to hear this." He turned to Khenmet. "Would you come as well? We could use you this time."
Khenmet nodded without hesitation. "Khonshu has already told me to help."
Max nodded, satisfied, and raised his ring hand. Green energy flowed outward, shaping itself with fluid precision into a large construct, a vehicle, the Maker realized, shaped like a chariot.
The Maker watched it form with barely concealed fascination.
Everything about that ring, the Maker thought, keeping his expression merely appreciative rather than hungry, is extraordinary. The power output alone exceeds anything theoretically possible with the technology he had by several orders of magnitude. And the spectrum itself, if it could be studied, replicated, integrated into a larger system—
He would try to get his hands on that ring eventually. Not now. There were bigger fish to fry. Whatever the nine Mephistos were planning was multiversal in scale, and as he had already begun to calculate, it could be turned to his own use as well.
His dream, a perfect society, a perfect reality, rebuilt from the ground up according to optimal parameters, had never felt closer.
He needed to be patient here.
The Maker climbed into the construct along with Max, Firehair, and Khenmet. It lifted smoothly into the air, rising above Pe, and began flying.
The Maker settled back and watched the ancient world pass beneath them.
His mind was already running.
He was already making over fifty different calculations by the time Pe disappeared behind them, each branching into sub-theories, each sub-theory generating new questions.
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Ghost brushed Tasi's fur in long, slow strokes, the mammoth rumbling with deep contentment beneath his hands. She leaned into him slightly, her enormous weight shifting with drowsy ease.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa—" Ghost stumbled sideways, catching himself before she pinned him entirely. "You are not falling asleep on me again, girl."
Tasi made a sound that was very clearly disagreement.
Nur and Azzuri sat nearby on the grass, backs against a low stone wall, watching the mountains in the distance. Nobody had said anything for a while.
"The person you saw is not you," Azzuri said.
"I wasn't thinking about that," Nur said.
"My friend." Azzuri looked at him with quiet patience. "I have known you for nearly two decades. That is exactly what you were thinking about."
Nur was quiet for a moment. "I could become him," he said finally. "He looked monstrous." A pause. "More monstrous," he added, and there was something ugly and self-directed in his voice.
"Oh, fuck off, Nur."
Both of them looked at Ghost.
He hadn't stopped brushing Tasi. Hadn't even looked up.
"Don't tell me we're back to the 'woe is me, I am a monster' phase," Ghost said. "I thought we killed that particular habit years ago."
Azzuri pressed his lips together. He failed to keep the smile off his face.
Nur glared at him.
"I apologize," Azzuri said, composing himself with some effort. "But tell me honestly. Do you believe you will become that?"
"Never," Nur said. Immediately. Without a single moment of hesitation.
"Well." Ghost finally looked up. "There it is." He set the brush down and turned to face him properly. "That man never had any of this, Nur. Think about it. Baal raised you to believe strength was the only thing worth having, that survival justified everything, that the weak existed to be consumed by the strong. If you had kept walking that road..." He let it hang for a moment. "You would have become exactly what we saw. But you didn't walk that road. You chose something else. You had Max and all of us, and you chose differently. That other En Sabah Nur never got that chance. He became what Baal always wanted. You became something Baal couldn't have imagined."
Nur was quiet for a long moment.
"I have been thinking the same thing," he admitted.
"You are not the same person, and you will never become that," Azzuri said. Not unkindly.
Nur nodded slowly. Then, because he couldn't entirely help it: "I wonder how strong he is."
"Pretty strong, I would guess," Azzuri said. "He seemed older, and like you said, monstrous. He must have refined your powers. He will be a dangerous adversary."
Nur's jaw set. "Then I need to come up with a plan."
"You won't be facing him alone," Azzuri said.
"There are nine of them," Nur said. "And ten of us now, with Stark. We would need to focus. One each, ideally. No spreading ourselves thin, no trading off. Each of us picks a target and commits."
"I already know mine," Ghost said.
The easy, casual tone he'd been carrying dropped away completely. He cracked his knuckles slowly, flames dancing between his fingers, his eyes glowing low like coals.
"That corrupted Spirit of Vengeance. He won't be a match for me." A pause. "I can't wait to get my hands on him."
Tasi lifted her head and let out a long, low trumpet.
It sounded like a war cry.
Ghost looked at his companion. "That's right, Tasi. That thing won't stand a chance."
"Ah," Ghost said, glancing toward the horizon. "Looks like our glorious leader has returned."
They all looked. In the distance, a green light was growing, moving fast, carving across the sky.
"Come," Azzuri said, standing and brushing grass from his hands. "Let us see what they found."
The courtyard of Kamar-Taj was already occupied when the three of them arrived inside.
Fan Fei sat near the far wall in meditation. Vnn crouched nearby. Agamotto stood at the center of the courtyard with his hands behind his back. Odin leaned against a pillar with his arms crossed, Mjolnir resting against his thigh, looking impatient.
The green light descended first.
Max landed cleanly, the aura around him fading as his boots touched the stone. Firehair came down beside him a half-second later, the Phoenix fire guttering out as she landed, her hair settling around her shoulders.
The construct behind them dissolved as it touched the ground, and two others stepped forward from where it had been.
A woman in white robes. And a man who looked out of place.
"Khenmet," Nur said.
She smiled warmly. "En Sabah Nur."
"Azzuri. Ghost." A slight incline of her head to each of them.
"Good to see you again, priestess," Azzuri said, and meant it.
Her smile stayed. She turned to the others, greeting Fan Fei, Agamotto, Vnn, and Odin.
"We have another guest as well," Max said, glancing at the man beside Khenmet. "Another visitor from another Earth. This is Reed Richards."
Nur's head turned sharply. "Richards." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Like Kang?"
"No, no, that's Nathaniel—" Max stopped himself. "Actually, let's not get into the whole multiverse time travel thing..."
Reed smiled. "I don't know any Nathaniel. It is nice to meet you all."
"Reed's universe was also attacked," Firehair said. "By Mephisto's invaders. The same nine."
"Then we need to know everything," Agamotto said, already moving toward the interior. "We know very little of this threat. Every piece of information is valuable. What they are capable of, how they move, how they choose their targets—"
"Perhaps," Firehair said smoothly, "we should let our visitor rest before we interrogate him."
"I'm fine," Reed said. His voice was even and unhurried. "I'd rather get to the bottom of all of this. I want to understand what we're dealing with." A brief pause. "And I want to avenge my friends. My universe."
"Well, get in line, buddy."
Tony Stark emerged from the doorway, a carved wooden cup in one hand. He stopped when he saw Reed, took him in for a moment, then looked at Max.
"You found another one."
"He found us," Max said.
Tony looked back at Reed. "Tony Stark."
"I know," Reed said. "They told me there was a variant of you here."
"Oh yeah?" Tony stepped forward. "Well, I don't know any Reed Richards."
"I knew a Tony," Reed said.
Tony pointed at himself. "Same handsome genius billionaire? Devastating smile, unfairly good looks?"
"Yes," Reed said. "But with an inoperable brain tumor that was killing him."
Tony blinked. "Oh." He looked at his cup. "Well. That sucks."
"I'm glad you don't have one," Reed said simply.
"Yeah." Tony was quiet for a moment. "Me too."
The courtyard was silent for a moment, an uncomfortable silence.
"Alright." Max clapped his hands once, cutting cleanly through it. "Let's talk inside. We figure out what we're actually dealing with, and then we figure out what we do about it."
He turned toward the building as everyone followed him in.
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Clea knew the moment she cast that spell that she had made a terrible mistake.
The portal swallowed them whole, her, Thor, and all nine invaders, pulling them into a vortex of churning magical energy. It was like being caught in the eye of a storm made entirely of competing dimensional forces, colors that did not exist in normal reality swirling around them, the sound of reality itself being stretched and torn filling her ears.
She had barely a second to orient herself before Sadurang attacked.
He hurled a Crimson Obliteration hex, a spell from the darkest corners of demonic sorcery, pure destructive energy shaped into a blade of annihilation that cut through dimensional space.
"Unknown variables," Doom said from above her, his orange energy illuminating the vortex in sickly light. "Eliminate them."
Clea threw up a Faltinian Shield, forming a barrier that absorbed the Crimson Obliteration hex and dispersed it harmlessly. The impact still sent her spinning.
Sadurang pressed forward, hurling an Unraveling Curse, advanced sorcery that tried to literally pull her apart at the molecular level.
Clea countered with a Binding of Endless Night, Faltinian energy wrapping around the curse and smothering it before it could reach her. The two spells collided in the vortex, exploding outward in a shower of sparks.
Then the variant of her uncle moved. Apocalypse raised one enormous hand, energy gathering around him.
He never got to use it.
"HAVE AT THEE, KNAVE!"
Mjolnir connected with the side of the Apocalypse's head. The massive figure spun sideways, clearly surprised.
Thor caught Mjolnir on its return arc, already positioning himself between Clea and the remaining threats. Lightning crackled around him, illuminating the vortex in white and gold.
"Good timing," Clea said breathlessly.
"I am always timely!" Thor replied cheerfully, despite the chaos surrounding them.
They were right in the middle of the portal transit, between dimensions, between times. It was the most dangerous possible location for a magical confrontation. One wrong spell could scatter them across a dozen realities.
The Ghost Goblin feinted toward Thor, drawing both his and her attention for exactly half a second. Sadurang unleashed an attack.
The blast hit her.
"CLEA!" Thor roared.
Everything went white.
Then black.
Then hot.
"Ugh," Clea said, holding her head.
She was lying on something hard and very warm. She opened her eyes slowly, squinting against the brutal sunlight.
She was on top of a large canyon, red rock stretching in every direction, the drop on one side sheer and dramatic, falling hundreds of feet to a sandy floor far below. The sky above was blue, not a single cloud in sight. The air was dry and searingly hot against her skin.
She sat up carefully, checking herself. No major injuries. Her robes were singed at the edges, her head was pounding, and she had absolutely no idea where or when she was.
Clea looked around and realized where she was.
The Grand Canyon.
She had been here before, once with her father, and once with Stephen as well.
Something was very wrong.
She reached out immediately through their mental link, trying to contact Stephen.
Nothing.
Not blocked, absent. She could not detect his presence at all.
Strange, she thought, and almost laughed at the unintentional pun. Did he fall through the portal too?
No. She was certain he had not. She had seen him thrown backward just before she was pulled away.
Where was Thor? she thought with worry. She tried to locate him and was relieved when she felt his presence 500 miles away.
She paused.
Her eyes widened slowly.
She cast her temporal sensing spells.
The results came back.
Nearly six thousand years in the past.
"Oh," Clea said quietly.
.
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