Greenwich, London - The Warehouse
Ernst stood in the center of the cavernous warehouse.
The space had been gutted, reinforced with lead lining, and dominated by a massive, ring-shaped generator.
Behind him, Kerry double-checked the perimeter logs.
"We secured the block, Master Ernst," Kerry reported, his tone laced with disapproval.
"But the cost was exorbitant. Buying out these tenements, relocating the families, the demolition... we paid five times the market value. The accounts are bleeding."
Ernst adjusted the valves on the generator, ignoring the complaint.
"You see a ledger, Kerry. I see a survival bunker," Ernst said calmly.
"Money is a fiction we tell poor people to keep them working. What is hidden here? That is reality."
Kerry sighed, knowing further argument was useless.
"The perimeter is secure. But I must protest one last time. We don't know what is on the other side. Let me send a drone. Or a D-Class subject."
"No," Ernst said, checking his gear.
"The artifact responds to presence. To will. If I send a drone, I get static. If I send a fool, I get a corpse. I have to go."
He looked at Azazel. "Ready?"
Azazel now disguised as a human but still wearing a combat harness, nodded.
"I go where you go."
Ernst stepped away from the team to make his final preparations.
He opened a secure, lead-lined case.
Inside sat three vials of luminescent blue liquid.
CPH4.
It had taken two years, a thousand hidden clinics, and a fortune in bribes to extract this much.
Ninety grams of the hormone.
In his previous life, Ernst had seen the movie Lucy.
He knew the theory: at 100% brain capacity, the human mind transcends matter.
But the cost was total cellular collapse.
The body would cannibalize itself for energy to fuel the brain, eventually disintegrating into dust.
Ernst wasn't suicidal. He had a plan.
The Aether, he thought, staring at the blue vials. The Reality Stone.
The Stone had the power to convert matter into dark matter, to rewrite the laws of physics on a local scale.
His theory was simple but insane: Use the CPH4 to unlock his mind, and use the Reality Stone to sustain his body.
When his cells tried to disintegrate, he would use the Stone to force them back together.
He would use the Aether as an infinite battery to fuel the transformation, halting the evolution before he lost his humanity, but after he gained the power.
It was a delicate balance.
If he failed, Malekith's consciousness inside the Aether would consume him.
Or the CPH4 would turn him into a logical machine.
But when Ernst thought about the future, Thanos snapping his fingers, Darkseid invading with Parademons, Galactus descending from the stars, fear outweighed caution.
'I am a man in a universe of gods', Ernst told himself, closing the case. It is time to ascend.
"Initiate sequence," Ernst commanded.
The technicians flipped the switches.
The generator roared to life.
In the center of the ring, four Tesseract energy cells glowed with blinding intensity.
Hummmmm.
A beam of pure Space Stone energy shot into the center of the room, tearing at the invisible fault line of the Convergence.
The air screamed. Reality buckled.
Slowly, a two-meter-wide tear opened in the fabric of London.
It wasn't black; it was a swirling vortex of grey mist and gravity distortion.
"Stable!" a technician shouted over the noise.
Ernst wasted no time.
"Azazel, on me."
They stepped through the portal.
The transition was instant.
One moment, they were in a humid London warehouse.
The next, they were floating in a void of oppressive darkness.
There was no floor, no ceiling.
Just endless, jagged rocks floating in a zero-gravity expanse.
The air was cold and tasted of copper and ancient dust.
"Stay close," Ernst warned, his voice muffled by the thick atmosphere.
They drifted forward, using Azazel's telekinesis to propel themselves from rock to rock.
Then, they saw it.
In the center of the void, trapped between two massive stone obelisks, was a swirling cloud of red fluid.
The Aether.
It moved like liquid smoke, pulsating with a predatory intelligence.
It was beautiful and terrifying, a cancer in the shape of a nebula.
"It's here," Ernst whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The culmination of all his planning.
The Aether seemed to sense them.
The red cloud shifted, turning toward Ernst like a striking cobra.
"Shields!" Ernst shouted.
Azazel didn't hesitate. He thrust his hands forward, channeling his spatial energy.
A transparent, rippling barrier of distorted space formed between them and the red fluid.
The Aether lashed out, slamming against Azazel's barrier.
HISS.
The red liquid slid down the invisible wall, searching for a crack.
It was hungry.
"It wants a host," Ernst analyzed, watching the fluid move.
"It's been starving for five thousand years."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the first vial of CPH4.
"Azazel, hold the line," Ernst ordered, his eyes locked on the red swirl.
"I'm going to let it in."
"You're what?" Azazel grunted, struggling to maintain the shield against the pressure.
"Just for a second," Ernst said, uncorking the blue vial.
"I need to become the vessel. It's the only way to control it."
Ernst took a deep breath. He raised the CPH4 to his lips.
"Bottoms up."
——
Authors Note:
I have analyzed the physics of 'Writer Motivation.'
It turns out, my typing speed is directly correlated to the number of shiny blue rocks (Power Stones) in my inventory.
200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
10 reviews = 1 bonus Chapter