The wind howled around the edges of the London district, where the crumbling buildings loomed, specters of a forgotten age.
At the edge of the silence stood an abandoned factory, sealed off by S.H.I.E.L.D.
A whoosh of displaced air shimmered in the street. Soren and Thor appeared, the faint glimmer of teleportation still rippling.
"Healer, where is Jane?" Thor's deep voice thundered. His grip tightened around Mjölnir, eyes burning with anxious hope.
Soren offered a gentle smile on his lips. "Relax. I've located the trace of her aura."
"She's not lost ~ only… somewhere else. Come with me."
Before Thor could reply, they were already surrounded by several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, weapons raised.
"Stop! This area's off-limits! Step back!"
"I am the Doctor Macaluso. Where's Phil Coulson?"
There was a hesitation, and then recognition.
One agent lowered his weapon. "Soren Macaluso! Apologies, sir. Agent Coulson left instructions, we're to give you full clearance."
"Right this way."
Thor gave Soren a glance. "Seems you've made quite a name for yourself here."
Soren chuckled softly. "I try."
The moment they crossed the threshold, the air changed.
A low hum vibrated through the walls. Lights flickered overhead. The floor was scorched in strange, circular patterns, as reality itself had been peeled back like wallpaper.
Thor's brow furrowed, his instincts on high alert. "There's something unnatural here… the air stings. The world feels wrong."
Soren nodded grimly. "This is where Jane vanished. I believe a spatial rift opened here, a naturally forming one due to the Nine Realms' convergence."
"Heimdall likely couldn't locate her because she's not in our current spatial dimension."
"So how do we reach her?"
Soren approached the charred epicenter of the factory, placing a hand on the ground.
His eyes flashed silver as he activated his spatial awareness, the world around him rippled like liquid glass.
"This space is unstable. Fractured glass orbiting a storm. Jane's trapped in a pocket of collapsed space a fold in the universe."
"One step through the wrong layer and we could end up lightyears away."
Thor remained silent. Thunder rumbled faintly outside, as if the sky shared his dread.
"I'll try to open the rift, but I need you to stay still. Don't resist,"
"I'll handle the rest."
Thor gave a short nod, lowering his hammer.
Soren took a deep breath.
Potential Awakening Lv 10
Upgrading
Teleportation Lv 8 > Teleportation Lv 10
A torrent of unseen force rippled through Soren's body, and suddenly he felt the fabric of the world.
The tears. The places where up became down, and distance became meaningless.
He touched the edge of the space like a threadbare curtain and pushed.
A soundless shockwave pulsed outward.
"Now!"
He grabbed Thor's shoulder.
The world folded in on itself, light stretching like taffy, and with a sound like glass cracking underwater, the air around them collapsing inward.
Thor felt weightless. Then crushed. Then nothing.
His ears rang. Light flashed in impossible colors.
THOOM.
The moment they crossed the threshold of the rift, Soren and Thor were engulfed in complete silence, even their breathing felt intrusive.
This place was wrong.
A dim, murky glow seeped from somewhere above, barely illuminating the strange terrain. They were inside something vast… enclosed.
All around them rose walls of rock and soil, like they had been swallowed whole by the heart of a mountain. Roots hung like tendrils from the ceiling, petrified in place.
The very air shimmered with latent energy, space here was thin, warped like a dream collapsing on itself.
"This is… the inside of a mountain?" Thor muttered, stepping cautiously over cracked ground.
"But… it's massive. Larger than any cave I've seen."
"Not a natural formation." Soren said, narrowing his eyes.
"We're standing inside a spatial pocket~ a fragment of reality folded within another. And it's not stable."
Then Thor's head snapped toward the distance.
"Jane!"
He didn't wait. With a burst of speed and thunder underfoot, he sprinted across the uneven terrain, his voice echoing through the hollow space.
Soren followed quickly, though not before noticing something unnatural in the stone around them.
A monolithic pillar stood in the center of the cavern, cracked, ancient, as though it had been placed here before the mountain even existed.
Beside that pillar…
Jane Foster.
She was crumpled at its base, her body motionless, her face pale. Faint red energy pulsed around her like a second heartbeat.
Soren's breath caught as he approached her. Even before touching her, he could feel it.
The Reality Gem, the Aether, was here.
But it was no longer visible.
It was inside her.
Soren placed a steadying hand on the pillar. A sharp jolt of power surged up his arm, ancient and volatile. It sang a familiar tune in his soul, resonating faintly with the Time Gem embedded in his body.
His eyes narrowed.
"It's the Aether, Thor. It was stored here… but it found Jane."
"It chose her."
Thor was kneeling beside her, checking her pulse, his features lined with concern.
"She's alive. Breathing fine. But why would this… this Aether go inside her?"
"Because she was vulnerable and curious. The Aether senses those traits. It uses them. It hides inside a host, concealing itself from those who would seek it."
"We need to get her out of here."
Soren nodded. "Agreed."
"This place is full of hidden rifts and distortions, we're sitting on a spatial fault line. Any longer and it could collapse."
He summoned his spatial energy, feeling the resonance of his upgraded abilities from before. With a wave of his hand, the air bent around them once more.
With a pulse of energy, the mountain faded away and the trio reappeared in the middle of the S.H.I.E.L.D. perimeter outside the factory, startling nearby agents.
Jane lay on a stretcher now, wrapped in a thermal blanket, her breathing calm. Thor stood over her, barely blinking.
Soren stood nearby, his gaze thoughtful.
"Soren, what happened to Jane?" Thor asked at last.
Soren exhaled slowly. "She accidentally stepped into a spatial anomaly during her research into convergence patterns. The Aether sensed her and merged with her body."
"She is safe now, but the Aether is no mere energy."
As if on cue, Jane stirred.
Her eyes fluttered open.
"Thor…?"
"Jane!" Thor knelt down beside her.
"Are you alright?"
Jane blinked rapidly, gasped, then~
SMACK!
Soren's eyebrows rose.
"Ow!" Thor's head tilted slightly, surprised more than hurt.
Jane's eyes went wide, then welled with tears. "You're real!"
"You're actually here! I thought I was hallucinating!"
Thor nodded, still confused.
SMACK!
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
PhantomDream