The world was still reeling from the "Google Revolution," but for the members here, the digital noise of the surface was merely a backdrop to a much more profound reality.
Tony Stark was in his Malibu workshop, staring at the telemetry of his latest flight test. He felt the familiar pull in his consciousness. He stepped into the center of the room, closed his eyes, and let the workshop fall away into darkness.
T'Challa, newly crowned and burdened by the weight of a kingdom he had only just inherited, sat on a balcony in Birnin Zana. He dismissed his attendants, seeking the solitude of his meditation chamber to answer the call of the fog.
Wanda Maximoff had settled into a rhythm she didn't realize she'd been craving. Workdays that ended on time. Aryan was no longer reserved; they were more than friends, a close distance from a confirmed relationship. She looked down at her hands, still steady only because of the life Aryan had carved out for her here. He was the architect of her new reality, the person who had pulled her from the wreckage of her past and given her a purpose. To everyone else, he was the genius founder and CEO of Umbrella, but to her, he was the only person who treated her differently.
As the appointed time approached, she felt that strange pull. She leaned back, closing her eyes and letting her breathing sync with the invisible pulse of the building. The sunlight on her skin transformed, the warmth of the room dissolving into silent pressure of the Gray Fog.
Aryan sat in his office as the "Red Queen" hummed quietly in the background. He looked at the vast empire he had built in just months, then leaned back and let his consciousness ascend.
Deep beneath the Atlantic, Namor was surveying the borders of Talokan. He was a king of duty, currently brooding over the sudden influx of "surface signals" that were piercing even his deep-sea sensors. Suddenly, a gray mist began to seep through the seawater. Before he could raise his spear, the pressure of the ocean vanished.
The transition was instantaneous. One moment, Namor was in the crushing depths of the Atlantic; the next, the weight of the ocean was gone, replaced by an airy, ancient silence. He was standing on a floor of ancient stone surrounded by a boundless, swirling gray fog.
He recognized the faces of Tony Stark and T'Challa from his kingdom's surface intelligence. There was that surface man, Aryan, who had disrupted oceanic data flow without ever touching the sea—the one whose shadow had appeared repeatedly in Namor's investigations. And beside him—the woman, Wanda. The assistant.
But it was the figure at the head of the table that froze the blood in Namor's veins.
A man sat upon the majestic throne, his form draped in a cloak of shifting fog. A dense mist obscured his face, but the aura he projected was so immense it felt like meeting the gaze of the universe itself. The sheer pressure of his existence made the room feel as though it were vibrating on a frequency too high for human ears.
Namor, a king who had ruled for centuries, did not lash out. He was no fool. He felt insignificant, like a single drop of water realizing it was part of an endless storm.
The four members stood in perfect unison. Their voices joined in a melodic chant that echoed through the infinite space:
"The Fool that doesn't belong to this era."
"The Mysterious Ruler above the gray fog."
"The King of Yellow and Black who wields good luck."
"The True Creator who embodies luck, deception, and fate."
"We pray for your grace."
"We pray for your blessing."
"We pray for the mercy of your gaze."
The moment the honorifics ended, Namor couldn't move. His body understood something his mind refused to accept. that this was not a place where defiance mattered. He watched, paralyzed, seeing T'Challa, a man he sensed was a fellow sovereign, bowing with genuine respect. He saw the arrogance of Tony Stark humbled into a quiet awe.
"What... what is this place?" Namor finally asked, his voice low, stripped of its usual regal thunder. He didn't move toward the throne; he didn't dare. "Why have I been pulled before this... creator?"
Tony glanced sideways at the newcomer, whispering just loud enough for the sound to carry across the ancient stone, "Yeah, don't worry—first time's always like this."
Namor shot him a jagged look, his eyes still wild with the residue of his sudden displacement. "You've been here before?"
"Twice," Tony replied, leaning back with a deceptive ease. "Wouldn't recommend the nerves. They don't help."
T'Challa, seated with the rigid grace of a man born to rule, inclined his head slightly toward Namor in a silent acknowledgment. "You were not summoned by accident," he said, his voice a steadying anchor in the swirling mist.
Wanda added softly, her gaze drifting toward the edges of the fog, "None of us were."
Namor's gaze snapped back to the throne, to the majestic, shrouded figure that sat in a silence more profound than the deepest ocean trench. "You stand before something you worship," he said, the words heavy and slow. "And you call this… normal?"
Aryan finally spoke, his tone bridging the gap between the divine and the mundane. "It's not worship. It's an honorific—more like an acknowledgment."
Namor felt the scale of it then. This wasn't a god of oceans or skies, a mere spirit of the elements. This was something that didn't compete with nature; it wrote the margins around it. It was the canvas upon which the universe was painted.
"…Creator of the universe," Namor murmured, his voice tight with a crystalline fear. "Is this what you believe it to be?"
Tony shrugged, though his eyes remained fixed on the table. "I believe it's above my pay grade."
Namor exhaled slowly, the tension in his shoulders beginning to fracture. He looked at the gray emptiness, then back at the gathered souls. "If this being wished me erased," he said, the realization settling over him like a shroud, "I would already be gone."
"Correct," Tony said, a small, knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
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