"Keep pushing!" Steve's voice cut through the static. "Tower's straight ahead!"
They moved through the wreckage in bursts—cover to cover, block by block—Tony providing air support while the rest advanced on foot. The air smelled of ozone and scorched metal. Every step crunched over glass and alien armor fragments that still hissed from the heat.
"Jarvis," Tony said, "give me structural integrity on the tower. How bad?"
"Bad, sir. Seventy-four percent compromised. But it's still standing—barely."
"Yeah, that's my girl," he muttered, forcing a smile.
Natasha and Clint led the way through a half-collapsed lobby, weapons drawn.
"Area looks clear," Clint said, scanning the shadows. "For now."
"'For now' never means what I want it to," Natasha replied, moving to the elevator shaft. "We take the stairs. Power's fried."
"Of course it is," Johnny said, flame flickering low around his hands. "Why climb when we can fly?"
"Because not all of us can set ourselves on fire, genius," Ben rumbled, shouldering aside a twisted support beam.
By the time they reached the top floors, the battle outside had become distant thunder. Tony landed hard beside them, armor scorched and sparking but functional.
"Alright," he said, panting slightly, "moment of truth."
The top floor had been crudely modified, including an open hole in the roof from which the beam of blue light connected to the portal above could flow freely. And that beam came from the machine in the heart of the room.
It was a relatively large device, connected to the tower's main power line, though Tony knew that it no longer drew power from it. It was also surrounded by what appeared to be a blue force field, likely to protect it from getting damaged.
Something Tony quickly tested by firing a blast right at it.
The repulsor beam hit the barrier dead center.
It didn't even ripple.
Instead, the energy rebounded, scattering in all directions. The windows behind them shattered under the reflected blast, and Tony was thrown backward, crashing against a support pillar.
"Okay—ow," he groaned, armor crackling with static. "That's new. Jarvis, analysis!"
"Unknown energy composition, sir. Frequency overlap suggests… Tesseract radiation mixed with a neural interference pattern."
"Neural?" Tony blinked, rising to his feet. "Wait, what do you mean neural—"
"It won't work."
The voice came from the shadows beyond the machine. Calm, steady, precise.
A figure stepped into the light of the portal beam. His silhouette stretched long across the ruined floor, framed by the glow of the Tesseract.
Reed Richards.
Or rather—what was left of him.
His posture was rigid, unnatural, his eyes burning faintly blue, the same sickly hue that still haunted Clint's thoughts.
"Of course it won't," Reed continued, voice flat but measured, almost curious. "The energy field you just fired on was designed by me. You can't destabilize it with brute force. It draws its power from something far beyond your comprehension, Stark."
Tony straightened, his repulsor already charged again. "Well, you always were a little smug about being the smartest guy in the room."
Reed tilted his head. "Was?" His smile was thin, lifeless. "No, Tony. I am the smartest man in the room. Always was. Always will be. That's why I was chosen."
"Chosen by who?" Steve demanded, stepping forward, shield raised.
Reed's eyes flickered brighter. "By the will that guides all life to its proper balance. By the one who sees the sickness of this world and seeks to cure it. He showed me the truth—the entropy that consumes you all. He offered clarity."
Ben took a step forward, fists tightening. "Reed… don't do this."
Reed's gaze shifted to him. For a heartbeat, his expression faltered—then hardened. "Ben… you should be grateful. The Great One doesn't discriminate, monster or not, all have an equal chance to survive."
"Alright, that's it," Johnny growled, igniting fully. "You want a fight, Doc? You got one."
Flames roared to life around him, but before he could charge, Reed's arm lashed out—stretching like a whip and slamming Johnny into the wall hard enough to crater it.
"Don't," Reed said coldly. "You can't win."
"Wanna bet?"
Tony's repulsors flared again, and the floor exploded in light. Reed darted aside—his body stretching, flattening, twisting in ways no human body should. A counter-swing of his arm caught Tony's leg, sending him crashing to the ground.
"Tony!" Steve shouted, charging in. He hurled his shield; it ricocheted off the machine's barrier, clipped Reed's shoulder, and came spinning back.
Reed didn't even flinch. His arm reformed, unbroken. "You can't stop this. None of you can. The portal is self-sustaining now. The energy loop feeds directly through the Cube's dimensional harmonics. Powering the shield from within, it's all but impossible to shut it off. Not even destroying the tower will change anything; it's locked in space."
He glanced toward the beam reaching up into the sky. "It's beautiful, isn't it? A perfect system. Order from chaos."
"Order?" Natasha snapped, firing a burst from her pistols. Yet Reed just stretched and contorted his body in impossible ways, letting the bullets fly harmlessly by.
He turned his gaze toward her, calm as ever. "You call this chaos because you don't understand it. But I do. For the first time, I see the design. I see how small we really are."
Tony forced himself upright, armor sparking. "Getting mind-controlled really didn't help with your attitude at all."
"Funny," Reed said, stretching his arm forward—fast as a blade—"I was about to say the same about you."
The strike lashed out. Steve caught it on his shield, the impact driving him back several feet, boots grinding against the floor.
Ben charged next, roaring, tackling Reed bodily through a wall. The two crashed through machinery and debris, steel bending like cardboard under their strength. For a moment, it looked like the fight had turned—until Reed's body coiled around Ben's arm, locking it tight.
"Still think muscle can outthink mind?" Reed hissed, twisting.
"Yeah," Ben grunted, pulling him closer—then headbutting him square in the face. "'Cause I ain't thinkin'."
Reed reeled, the glow in his eyes flickering.
"Now!" Steve shouted.
Tony fired. Natasha fired. Johnny, recovered, unleashed a blast of flame so bright it painted the walls orange.
Reed screamed—the mind stone's glow bursting outward like shattered glass. The psychic hold snapped. He collapsed, motionless, smoke rising from his uniform.
For a long moment, no one moved.
"Reed?" Ben said quietly, stepping closer. "Buddy…?"
Reed coughed once, eyes fluttering open. The blue was gone—replaced by confusion and horror. "Ben…? What… what did I—"
Tony cut him off. "You can apologize later, Stretch. Right now, I need you to tell me how to shut that thing down."
Reed looked toward the beam. His face went pale. "You can't."
Tony stared. "What do you mean, can't?"
Reed swallowed hard. "Because I didn't build it to stop. It has no remote way of turning it off, and nothing—nothing—can breach the force field around it. It's space itself, folded and locked, blocking entry. Nothing can breach it, nothing can turn it off or destroy it."
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Only the hum of the machine filled the silence—a deep, rhythmic pulse that made the entire tower vibrate.
Steve stepped forward, lowering his shield slightly. "So we can't shut it down. We can't destroy it. What can we do?"
Reed pushed himself to his feet, still unsteady. "If the field really is anchored through space itself… nothing you have can breach it. It's a perfect recursive system. The Tesseract regulates the loop, the loop stabilizes the portal, and the portal sustains the energy feedback that powers the field."
Tony's faceplate slid open. His expression was pale, tight. "You're describing a perpetual motion bomb, Richards."
Reed grimaced. "That's one way of putting it."
Johnny hovered nearby, flame dimming to a soft glow. "So what, we just… stare at it? Hope it gets tired?"
"Not gonna happen," Clint muttered. "That thing looks like it could outlast the sun."
Tony exhaled through his nose, pacing. His mind was racing, his eyes flicking from readout to readout as Jarvis flooded his HUD with data.
"There's got to be a bypass. Some kind of manual disconnect."
Reed shook his head. "The containment is absolute. It's locked into the Cube's dimensional frequency. Any attempt to breach it will only feed more power into the field. The only way to stop it would be to… separate the Tesseract from the machine."
"Which we can't do," Natasha said flatly. "Because of the barrier."
"Exactly," Reed said.
"No," Natasha said, shaking her head, "there must be a way to shut it down."
"I'm sorry," Reed said, feeling guilty, "but there isn't."
"No," Natasha repeated, her tone certain. "There has to be. That alien who controlled you and Clint—he came for the Cube, I'm sure. Which means he wouldn't let it be trapped there forever, so he must have some way of turning it off, of getting the Cube."
Reed looked up sharply at her words. "The… alien?"
Natasha nodded, lowering her pistols slightly. "The one with the staff. The one who used you. He wasn't here just to destroy the planet—he wanted the Cube."
"Which means," Tony said, catching on, "if he wanted to take it back to his boss, he had to design a way to retrieve it. No one builds a doomsday device they can't switch off."
"Unless they're insane," Clint muttered.
Tony shot him a look. "He's a mind-controlled genius. Of course he's insane. But he's also efficient. And efficiency means control."
Reed frowned, processing. "There was… something. The scepter, it gave off a strange energy, it interfered with my work once. The energy was very similar to the Cube's… it's possible the two might cancel one another out, allowing it to reach through the shield."
Tony snapped to him. "You're saying the glow-stick of destiny can poke holes in the force field?"
"Not poke—invert," Reed said. "If you bring the scepter's lattice to the correct proximity and orientation, its phase should cancel the field long enough to reach through and decouple the Cube."
Clint breathed out, low. "Yeah. We get it. Bring the scepter near the Cube, job's done."
Natasha holstered one pistol. "Then it's simple. We get the scepter."
"Minor snag," Johnny said, raising a hand. "Which one of us currently owns the mind-control wand?"
Ben grimaced. "The ugly string bean with the voice."
Reed nodded, jaw tight. "Ebony Maw."
Tony shook his head. "I did a full-spectrum sweep on the way up. Nada. Either he's invisible, intangible, or deeply allergic to my Wi-Fi."
Reed wiped a smear of soot from his cheek, grimacing at the machine's pulse. "It could be either, or all of the above. Maw used powerful telekinesis and other abilities while I was under his control. It's entirely possible he is just hiding nearby, or flying outside overseeing the battle…"
Ben scowled. "So how do we find him?"
"We can't," Reed said. "We need him to come out of hiding, force him to reveal himself, or find some way of breaking his means of hiding."
Natasha reloaded, eyes scanning the rafters. "Any ideas as for how to accomplish any of that?"
"Chuck might be able to sniff him out, but he is likely busy. Mutants aren't exactly able to move around freely these days, and he needs to protect the school," Logan said, having been mostly silent so far.
Clint snorted. "Even if Xavier could spare a minute, I'm not shooting coordinates into a telepath's head and hoping for the best."
"Agreed," Steve said. "We solve it here."
Tony paced to the blown-out window again, eyes tracking the shimmer of the portal. "Jarvis, give me anything Maw can't fake. Micro-barometric, aerosol scatter, subsonic harmonics—"
"Compiling. Warning: ambient field noise from the Tesseract is saturating most bands. False positive rate exceeds ninety-two percent."
"So we're playing Where's Waldo in a strobe light," Johnny muttered.
Ben ground stone knuckles together. "Or we smash the whole roof until the fancy bubble coughs him up."
Reed shook his head. "In theory it could work… but he isn't a sitting duck. He can move, even fly. He might be in here, or flying nearby outside overseeing the battle…"
A soft, oily chuckle vibrated through the ceiling trusses.
"Listen to your better," Maw's voice purred, everywhere and nowhere. "Even freed, the clever one serves the design."
Natasha shifted, calm and surgical. "He's baiting us to overextend."
"Yeah," Logan said, lip curling. "Which means we're close."
Clint already had three arrows nocked between his fingers. "I can lay a lattice. EMP, sonics, flash—herd him toward a corner."
"Toward what, exactly?" Tony asked. "We can't pin a math trick."
Reed's eyes flicked. "We can stress his sheath. If we overlap enough mismatched stimuli across a tight volume, the micro-geometry has to compensate. It'll thicken somewhere. That buys a blink."
"A blink's all I need," Logan said, claws snikt-ing out.
"Do it," Steve ordered. "Barton, curtain him. Johnny, keep it bright. Ben, you're our wall if he tries to blow past. Stark—eyes up."
"Forget it," Tony said dismissively. "While that could work in theory, setting it up would require equipment we don't have, and at least hours, if not days, once the equipment is ready. It's pointless."
The chuckle filled the air once more. "Another smart one, indeed. You have no time. I have already won."
"Enough," Natasha said, low, calm, deadly. "We're out of time."
Tony looked at the humming column of blue, at the city beyond, at his friends straining against a problem they couldn't touch—and made the call.
"We can't solve this, he is right… but that doesn't mean there isn't someone who can. Let's get out there and help, and maybe then she can help us in return." he finally said, before taking off without hesitation.
(End of chapter)
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