T'Challa sat in his chair, a blanket draped over his shoulders, a glass of water held steady in his hand.
The others were all seated around the table.
"King T'Challa," The Leader said. "Tell us everything you saw from the beginning. Every detail, no matter how small."
"I saw our Earth," T'Challa started. "But there was another, in the sky above it. The two worlds were... grinding against each other."
"I saw… cities turning to dust," he continued. "I saw oceans boiling away into clouds of superheated steam. I felt the screams of billions of people, on both worlds, as they were erased from existence."
Pietro, Bucky, and Sharon listened, their faces pale, their minds struggling to comprehend the scale of the cataclysm T'Challa was describing.
This was a threat so far beyond their understanding that it made all their previous battles seem like children's games.
"Then," T'Challa's voice dropped, "I saw Aryan."
"He was... flying in the sky, between the two dying worlds," T'Challa explained. "He was blazing. Like a new sun. The power coming from him was... a maelstrom of golden fire. The power you spoke of," he said, looking at Aryan, "the million exploding suns... it had awakened. It was holding the two realities apart."
Sharon stared at Aryan. Power? Awakened?
She had always known he was important. But this... a power on the scale of a sun? The man she loved, the man she had held just a few nights ago, was a cosmic bomb?
Pietro looked from Aryan to Wanda, his expression one of pure shock. He knew his sister was powerful.
But this was a level of power he couldn't even quantify. Aryan, the man he had once viewed with suspicion, the man he now considered his brother in law... was a god in waiting?
Bucky's reaction was more analytical. He looked at Aryan and saw a strategic asset of unimaginable significance.
The council's almost fanatical protectiveness of this seemingly normal man, their insistence that he never see the front lines... it all snapped into place with a clarity.
He was a weapon of last resort they were shielding.
Tony, seeing their shocked expressions, decided to offer a partial truth before their minds could run wild with conspiracy.
"Aryan possesses a latent ability," he stated. "We've known about it since the beginning. It is of a significant magnitude. The consensus of this council, from day one, has been that his power is an absolute final contingency that we pray will never be needed. Our primary goal has always been to solve problems with strategy and conventional force, to ensure that his power is never allowed to awaken."
"There was more," T'Challa said, his voice pulling them all back to the horror of his vision. "As I watched, Aryan in the sky… he looked at me."
A fresh wave of shock rippled through the room.
"And He said..." T'Challa's brow furrowed as he struggled to recall the precise words. "'IT IS TOO LATE FOR THIS. THE SEED WAS PLANTED IN THE PAST. FIND THE MAN OUT OF TIME. FIND STEVE ROGERS. HE IS THE UNRAVELING. HE IS THE '"
T'Challa flinched, his head throbbing. "That was it. The vision shattered. The last word was... gone."
For a full minute, no one spoke. They were all processing the terrifying implications.
An incursion. The end of the world. Aryan's awakened, god like power.
It was Tony who finally began to dissect the problem, his fear and awe being channeled into an energy.
"Okay," he began. "Let's break it down. Variable one: Two realities colliding. Bad. Apocalyptically bad. We have no frame of reference for this, no known science to explain it. We table this for a moment as the 'what'."
"Variable two," he continued, "Aryan. Your power awakens. This confirms our worst case scenario: the threat is of a magnitude that requires the 'last resort'. This tells us the 'when' is at a point of absolute desperation."
He stopped, turning his gaze to T'Challa. "But then there's variable three. The message. This is the part that doesn't fit."
"The future Aryan, he gave you a piece of intelligence. 'Find Steve Rogers. He is the unraveling.' He sent a message back in time, through your precognitive vision, to change the outcome."
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