Leander Hayes had always suspected that his connection to the Tesseract wasn't just a memory or a residual energy signature. He thought the Space Stone was lost, scattered to some unreachable corner of the Marvel multiverse after the chaos of his arrival. But the universe has a cruel way of proving that nothing is ever truly lost—it just waits for the right moment to reclaim its own.
As he floated in the silent, freezing vacuum of space, the last thin barrier between Leander and the cosmic entity vanished.
There was no sound, only a sudden, heavy pressure against his spine, right between his shoulder blades. The Space Stone, a mythical object that had existed in an alternate dimension of his own consciousness, finally forced its way back into the physical realm. It wasn't just touching him; it was anchoring itself. It seeped into his flesh, pushing upward through the meteorite-reinforced fabric of his clothing like a germinating seed of pure, cosmic power.
Then, the floodgates opened.
"Ah!!"
The scream was silent in the void, but Leander's entire body convulsed. His back arched so violently it looked like his spine might snap. His hands curled into tight, trembling fists, and his chest thrust forward as a torrent of raw, blue energy poured into his nervous system.
It wasn't like the "massage" of the plasma bolt from earlier. This was a tidal wave. This was the fundamental building block of distance and dimension trying to rewrite his DNA. The pain was sharp and tearing, a jagged sensation that started at the base of his neck and radiated outward like a web of lightning.
Leander had absorbed massive amounts of energy before—he had stood in the heart of vibranium mines where the output was five times that of a nuclear reactor—but this was different. This was infinite. It felt like trying to swallow the ocean through a straw.
Rip!
The metallic garment covering his torso disintegrated, unable to contain the pressure. If Leander could have seen himself from above, he would have been terrified. The small, glowing blue stone was pressed firmly against his skin, but it was surrounded by a network of "bloody" energy fissures. These weren't wounds in the traditional sense; they were cracks in space itself, etched into his skin, glowing with a pulsating blue light that flickered like a dying star.
The agony was so intense it paralyzed him. His muscles contorted into hard, fibrous knots, his fingers twitching in a chaotic chain reaction he could no longer control. Every muscle fiber was being stretched and divided by the spatial energy.
Then, the reality-warping began.
Leander's body started to flicker. In the eyes of any observer, he would have looked like a glitching image on an old television screen—appearing and disappearing, vibrating between two points in space. He was losing his "here-ness."
Inside the Triangular Scavenger Cabin
While Leander was becoming a cosmic anomaly, Jason was having the best day of his life. He was crouched in the wreckage of the scavenger ship, dragging a massive mesh bag behind him like a kid on a twisted Christmas morning. He was completely oblivious to the god-tier drama unfolding just outside the hull.
"Oh, look at this! A localized gravity stabilizer? This isn't cheap," Jason muttered, tossing a heavy component into his bag. He glanced at the two tied-up crewmen, his eyes gleaming with a manic, greedy energy. "Even as scrap, this pays for a month of fuel. I'm taking it."
He moved to the next locker. "Whoa! An ST-Small Autonomous Scanner? The latest model? These go for fifteen thousand on the black market. Rich merchants love these toys. Taking it."
He shoved a handful of glowing Energy Crystals into his pocket. "What were you guys even doing with this many? Are you running a small army? Whatever. Mine now."
"And what's this?" Jason asked, holding up a sleek, obsidian-colored bundle. He nudged one of the prisoners with his boot. "Talk. What's the high-tech pajamawear?"
"That's a YR-type Revolutionary Protective Suit," one of the men whimpered, his voice muffled by the thin air. "It's Kree military-grade. Self-contained flight, three weapon mounts, thirteen specialized tool slots... it even recharges via ambient light. We bought it for ninety thousand credits last week. We haven't even had a chance to list it yet."
Jason's eyes widened. "Ninety thousand? Beautiful. Simply beautiful." He stuffed it into the bag with a satisfied grunt. He even pulled out a multi-purpose wrench and started unscrewing the ship's internal brass fittings. If it wasn't nailed down, Jason was claiming it as his "survival tax."
In the Void
Outside, Leander was losing the battle. The Space Stone was generous, but its "gift" was an overload. It felt as if the stone was searching for something hidden deep within his core—a piece of the puzzle that was missing.
His eyes were bloodshot, the capillaries bursting from the pressure. Small droplets of blood leaked from the corners of his eyes, instantly freezing into tiny red ice crystals that drifted away into the dark. Every vein in his body was swollen and twitching.
I can't take much more of this, Leander thought through the haze of white-hot pain. I need to lock it down.
With a desperate mental roar, he triggered his Invincible Body.
Instantly, Leander's skin shifted from pale to a deep, resonant dark gold. The transformation acted as a metaphysical shield. The tearing pain vanished instantly, replaced by a profound, heavy stillness.
He could finally breathe.
Behind him, the energy of the Space Stone, unable to penetrate his hardened golden form, began to vent outward. It didn't just dissipate; it began to swirl around him in complex, geometric patterns. It looked like the ancient magic he had seen back on Earth, forming a shimmering space barrier. The surrounding vacuum began to crack, long jagged "fractures" appearing in the starfield as the stone's power tried to find a way through the invincible barrier.
Leander looked at his hands. He knew the golden light was temporary—it would last only a few minutes, followed by a twelve-hour cooldown. He had to think fast.
It was always there, he realized. Since the day I touched the Tesseract in that lab. It wasn't just energy; the stone itself anchored to my soul. But why now? And why is it so violent? Thanos held this thing with his bare hands and didn't turn into a flickering light-show.
He reached behind his back, his golden fingers searching for the round surface of the stone. He gripped it, trying to pry it from his spine, but his hand simply passed through a spatial cavity. It was as if the stone existed in a pocket dimension three inches deeper than his physical body.
Every time he moved, the space behind him shattered like glass, the universe frantically trying to repair the dimensional rifts he was leaving in his wake. He was a walking disaster zone.
He looked at his internal clock. The Invincible Body was fading. If the stone started pouring its raw power back into his flesh once the gold was gone, he was dead.
"I need a conduit," he whispered.
His shoulders began to tremble. In a surge of instinct, he commanded his Wings of Nirvana to unfold.
The imaginary, fluid wings of purple-gold energy snapped outward, expanding into the void. As they solidified into a physical entity, something miraculous happened. The Space Stone, sensing the shift in Leander's biological and energetic structure, finally detached from his spine.