Chapter 2: Saint in Stasis
Captain America | Shrine World of Virelia
He was falling through shards.
Each fragment of glass around him shimmered with moments-reflections of a life once lived.
He saw himself as a boy small, frail, coughing in an alley while the world walked past him. He saw the flag, the crowds, the cheers of a nation built on the promise that good men could still make a difference. He saw Bucky laughing, Peggy smiling, and the long, cold silence that came after.
The shards cut through him as they fell. Every memory drew blood-not from flesh, but from spirit.
"You did what you could."
A voice his mother's faint but steady.
He reached for it, for that fragment of warmth, and saw something new forming among the shards: a small pocket watch, cracked but still ticking. Inside the glass face, the hands had stopped at 11:11-the same time he had fallen into the ice. The same moment history had left him behind.
He clutched it in the storm, whispering through the pain, "Then let it start again."
The shards scattered, vanishing into the dark - and light swallowed him whole.
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[Shrine World of Virelia, Segmentum Solar]
The bells tolled, their echoes rolling through the holy canyons of Virelia. Pilgrims in gray robes shuffled in lines that stretched for miles, their chants a low hum beneath the planet's crimson sky. Incense burned in the air, thick and sweet, as the Ecclesiarchy priests led a sermon at the ruins of the old cathedral.
The ruin was ancient - built atop the remains of something even older, a relic from before the Imperium's reach. The people called it "The Hollow Saint's Crypt."
They did not know how right they were.
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"Keep your voices steady," hissed Father Veron, his augmetic eyes whirring as he surveyed the crowd. "His Holiness wants order, not chaos."
"Order?" rasped Deacon Helda, carrying a censer that bled green smoke. "We've got pilgrims collapsing from hunger, Father. Maybe the Emperor wants compassion before order."
Father Veron frowned, his face twitching with mechanical displeasure. "The Emperor wants faith. Compassion is a luxury."
A young acolyte, barely more than a boy, approached timidly. "Sirs... the ground beneath the crypt. It's shaking again."
Veron's eyes flicked toward the altar. "Then pray harder. The Saint stirs when doubt is near."
Helda sighed. "You mean when the foundations crumble."
They were about to argue further when a low thrum rolled through the air deep, mechanical, alive. The incense flames flickered. Dust rained from the shattered arches above. The pilgrims gasped, kneeling instinctively.
Then, beneath the marble floor, something moved.
A crack split the ground. Light spilled out not golden, not holy, but blue. The color of courage and defiance.
The priests stumbled back as a slab of metal burst from the earth rounded, rimmed with red, white, and blue. The shield emerged first, fossilized in adamantium dust, then the arm that held it.
Gasps filled the chamber.
"He rises!" cried a pilgrim.
"It's the Saint!" another wept.
"The Emperor has sent His avatar!"
When the dust settled, a man stood amid the ruin -broad-shouldered, clothed in torn, ancient armor of blue and red, his hand clutching a shield marked by stars. His eyes opened slowly, and for a moment, there was nothing but confusion and the soft ticking of a pocket watch in his other hand.
Captain Steve Rogers looked around. The sky was blood-red, the air tasted of iron and incense, and a thousand kneeling figures stared at him as if salvation had walked among them.
He swallowed hard. "Where... am I?"
Father Veron fell to his knees, trembling. "You are upon holy Virelia, my lord... We have awaited you since the First Dawn."
"I'm not your lord," Steve said, his voice hoarse. "I'm just... trying to get home."
Helda stepped forward, tears streaming down her face. "Then guide us there, Saint Liberatus. Guide us home."
He blinked, the weight of their faith pressing down like a storm.
Saint...?
Steve looked at his shield - scuffed, scarred, still shining faintly in the dying light. His mother's voice echoed faintly in his mind: "You did what you could."
He took a deep breath. "If home means helping people... then maybe I can do that much."
The pilgrims bowed, chanting louder, the word "Liberatus" echoing through the ruins.
Above them, the stained sky rippled, The Tear widening again, unseen by all but him. And for a fleeting instant, Steve Rogers felt it: something watching, something vast and cruel.
He gripped the shield tighter. Whatever this world was, he would stand.
He always did.
The Tear closed like an eye-slowly, reluctantly-leaving only that uneasy shimmer in the heavens.
Steve Rogers stood beneath it, the pilgrims still kneeling around him. The sound of their chants rose like waves crashing against the cliffs of his mind.
"Saint Liberatus," they called him again.
He didn't correct them this time.
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Days passed.
They gave him food-something tasteless, processed, but edible. They gave him a small chamber within the Cathedral Fortress where he could rest, though he rarely did. He spent his time walking the streets of Virelia, or what was left of them.
The city was a mausoleum carved into devotion. Enormous statues of armored men towered over every square, banners bearing the sigil of a double-headed eagle fluttered in winds that smelled of ash and oil. Every surface was carved with prayers. Every breath was worship.
There were no children laughing, no music, no color beyond the gold of sanctified decay.
Faith was law here-faith in the God-Emperor of Mankind.
Father Veron guided him through the cathedrals, speaking with reverence. "Ten thousand years, my Saint. Ten thousand years since the Emperor sacrificed His mortal flesh to ascend the Golden Throne. His will holds the Imperium together. His light guides the ships of humanity through the Warp. Without Him, there would be only madness."
Steve listened, his expression unreadable.
He had heard words like these before-different names, different flags, same conviction. Men who believed so completely that they'd forgotten how to think.
"Sounds like He carries a heavy burden," Steve said softly.
Father Veron smiled faintly. "A burden no mortal could bear. That is why He is divine."
Steve didn't argue. But his eyes lingered on the faces of the pilgrims in the square-thin, pale, exhausted. They prayed until they bled. They worked until they broke. And every time one collapsed, another whispered, 'The Emperor protects.'
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That night, he sat alone in the cathedral's outer steps, his shield resting beside him.
He had asked questions-about the Emperor's wars, His armies, His Inquisition. He'd learned about the worlds burned for heresy, the people executed for doubt.
And though the priests spoke of it as justice, Steve could feel the quiet fear under their words.
They were terrified of being seen as anything less than faithful.
He looked at the stars above-the same sky, yet not. The Tear shimmered faintly there, just beyond perception, like a crack in the lens of reality.
He thought back to other wars, other ideologies. He remembered seeing men follow orders because they were told it was right. He remembered Hydra's propaganda twisting patriotism into fanaticism.
And he whispered, almost to himself,
"Blind faith. I've seen where that road leads."
The pocket watch in his hand ticked faintly-still stuck at 11:11. A moment frozen in time.
He stared at it for a long while before saying quietly,
"If half of what they say about this Emperor is true... then he's either the loneliest man in history..."
He looked toward the massive statue that dominated the square, its shadow stretching over him like judgment.
"...or the most dangerous.
He rose, shield in hand.
Tomorrow, the priests said, he would be presented to the high Ecclesiarch of Virelia, a living saint confirmed by ceremony.
He didn't know what that meant. But he'd stand there anyway.
Because whatever this Imperium was hiding behind its prayers and gold… he needed to see it for himself.
And Steve Rogers had never once looked away from the truth, no matter how much it hurt.