Chapter 466 AIM's Desperate StruggleAldrich Killian, CEO of Advanced Idea Mechanics, stared at the radar monitor until his eyes burned. Air Force One had just vanished from the tracking grid.
He dragged a hand down his face, his jaw tight. He had hijacked the President's plane. He held Tony Stark's best friend, James Rhodes, captive in this facility as a living bargaining chip. Stark wouldn't dare blast the aircraft out of the sky. The Avengers neededthat plane intact to guide them straight to this A.I.M. stronghold.
A green blip flickered back onto the radar. Communications re-linked. Killian exhaled a sharp breath and spun around to face the remnants of his staff.
"Guests are arriving!" Killian barked, his voice echoing off the bunker's concrete walls. "Suit up. We're fighting the Avengers."
A technician in a yellow hazmat suit shifted his weight, refusing to make eye contact. "We can't beat the Avengers, boss. Why not cut our losses? Hydra would take us."
Killian ground his teeth. The regular A.I.M. staff had already evacuated. Only the zealots remained. Some were Hydra plants; the rest were Killian's personal loyalists, fueled by the same bitterness that had consumed him since New Year's Eve, 1999. Stark had humiliated him. Killian had sworn to return the favor. He had partnered with botanist Maya Hansen to weaponize the Extremis virus, taking Hydra's dirty money to fund the initial research.
Hydra didn't care about Stark. They cared about the next phase: fusing Extremis with shape-memory liquid metal to build the Super-Adaptoid combat androids. Killian didn't care about Hydra's global domination. He just wanted Stark dead.
"Are the Super-Adaptoids calibrated?" Killian demanded, stepping into the technician's personal space.
"Yes, sir," the tech stammered. "But we only have three online. One lost its signal entirely. Can they really stop them?"
Killian sneered. "If they fail, they detonate. Either way, Stark burns."
"Boss! We have a breach." Another tech waved frantically from a side console.
"The Avengers?"
"No. Griffin. He took the Cosmic Cube containment shell and fled the facility."
Killian pinched the bridge of his nose. Griffin was a former S.H.I.E.L.D. contractor who had pitched A.I.M. the Cosmic Cube initiative—a portable gateway to infinite dimensional energy. Hydra had poured millions into the concept. A.I.M. had nearly been raided by S.H.I.E.L.D. right out of their legitimate corporate headquarters over it. Yet, after all that, they only managed to build a theoretical containment shell. An empty box.
"He stole an empty shell?" Killian let out a dry, humorless laugh. "He must have sensed the heat coming and panicked. Let Hydra hunt him down. We have bigger problems."
The radar pinged. Air Force One entered visual range. A smaller signature flanked it.
Killian turned to his deputy. "Is Rhodes's Extremis modification complete?"
The deputy swallowed hard. "Not yet, boss. The bonding process needs more time."
Killian's posture stiffened. "Forget it, then. Man your stations."
Inside the cabin of Air Force One, the Avengers clustered around a mahogany conference table. The President's private jet now functioned as a flying war room.
Tony Stark leaned over a holographic tactical map. "So, we're assuming Nimrod is the architect here."
Steve Rogers crossed his massive arms, his vibranium shield strapped to his back. "It fits the timeline. But why didn't Nimrod engage us directly? If it's as lethal as the intel says, it could have taken us out in the air".
Hank Pym adjusted his collar. "Nimrod doesn't possess a physical chassis in this era. It didn't bring its Sentinels back through the temporal rift. It transferred its consciousness—pure data. It's operating as a massive, decentralized artificial intelligence."
Spider-Man hung upside down from the ceiling by a single strand of webbing, his mechanical lenses widening with focus. He dropped into an empty leather armchair, bouncing slightly. "Nimrod is ridiculously advanced. Like, 'take over the world in 2029' advanced. It can hide from JARVIS and Ultron at the same time. But it has a hard cap. It doesn't have the raw processing horsepower to delete Ultron or overwrite him."
Tony tapped the hologram, expanding a schematic of the A.I.M. base. "Exactly, kid. With Hank's Ultron build running point on our network, our data is heavily encrypted. A.I.M. isn't the real threat today. They're just the hired guns. We need to rip Nimrod out of their servers. Its original timeline got scrambled, so now it's improvising."
"And the Super-Adaptoids?" Steve asked. "The 'Citizen V' project?"
Tony's face hardened. "Upgraded tech. Mimics powers. If A.I.M. held onto their prototypes, they'll be waiting for us on the ground."
Chapter 467 The Demise of AIMAir Force One descended through the clouds, a massive target against the gray sky. Surface-to-air missiles streaked upward from the docks, slamming into the presidential Airbus and the stealth Quinjets trailing right behind it. Fireballs bloomed over the water.
But the planes were already empty.
Ten figures free-fell through the smoke. Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne had diverted straight from the Raft prison cleanup to join the drop. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff flanked them. Pietro's excuse for tagging along had been a casual, "Magneto told us to keep an eye on the spider." Steve Rogers had weighed the tactical risk of bringing foreign mutant royalty into an American firefight for exactly one second before nodding.
Hulk and Thor hit the ground first.
Hulk used an A.I.M. anti-aircraft battery as a landing pad, flattening the launcher into scrap metal. He swung a massive green fist, backhanding three A.I.M. engineers in yellow hazmat suits across the tarmac. Instead of staying down, the grunts glowed with a volcanic orange light. They snapped back to their feet, unharmed.
Thor shattered another launcher with Mjolnir and called down a localized lightning strike, blanketing a dozen troops in high-voltage electricity. The engineers twitched, absorbed the current, and stood right back up, their veins burning bright orange beneath their skin.
"Don't hold back!" Tony Stark's voice cracked over the comms. "They're spiked with the Extremis virus! Every single one of them is a walking bomb!"
The Model Prime armor shifted around Tony, micro-bays opening across his shoulders to unleash a swarm of smart-munitions. Pop-pop-pop. "No intelligence value here! Clear the board! If Killian puts up a fight, put him in the ground!"
Tony hit the pavement directly in front of Aldrich Killian. The A.I.M. president was practically radiating heat, his skin laced with fiery fissures.
Killian sneered, spreading his arms. "Finally, we meet on the rooftop."
Tony retracted his faceplate. He blinked. "First of all, this is a dock warehouse. Secondly... what are you talking about?"
Killian's jaw locked. He lunged, throwing a fist burning at three thousand degrees. Tony raised a forearm. The nanotech composite blocked the blow, but the sheer heat melted away a chunk of the gauntlet. Before Killian could press the advantage, the liquid metal rippled, instantly replicating and sealing the breach.
"Alright," Tony sighed, his faceplate snapping shut. "My turn."
The arc reactor in his chest flared, blasting a unibeam straight into Killian's chest. Tony didn't even watch him fly backward. He looked up at the sky. "Anybody got eyes on Rhodey?"
"Got him, Tony! A.I.M. was working on him!"
The roof of the primary warehouse exploded outward. A sixty-foot-tall Hank Pym stepped through the corrugated steel, carefully cradling an unconscious Colonel James Rhodes in his massive palms. A half-dozen Extremis soldiers rushed Hank's boots and self-destructed. Thermobaric blasts washed over his ankles, but the giant's scaled-up density absorbed the shockwaves without making him flinch.
Two Super-Adaptoids blurred out of the facility ruins.
One locked onto the Hulk. Hulk delivered a right hook that could shatter a tank. The android's head caved in, but the liquid-metal chassis immediately flowed back into shape, glowing with Extremis heat. The android wound up and punched Hulk square in the jaw. Its metallic fists bulged, rapidly shifting mass and density to perfectly mirror the Hulk, and the two behemoths began trading earth-shattering blows.
The second Adaptoid intercepted Thor. Mjolnir struck its chest. The liquid metal rippled, instantly extruding a metallic cape and a dense, hammer-shaped appendage. It swung the replicated weapon, discharging a blast of copied lightning that met Thor's own in a blinding flash.
"What manner of mockery is this?" Thor growls, swinging Mjolnir to cleave the machine in half. The two halves simply bled back together. "A few months ago, they were mere copper and wire! Now they are monsters!"
"Their evolutionary leap is abnormal," T'Challa said.
The Black Panther dropped from a crane, driving his vibranium claws directly into the Adaptoid's skull. He wrenched backward, trying to sever the head, but the metal just flowed around his hands. T'Challa dropped back down. "This metal... it does not match current Earth reserves."
Pietro blurred to a stop next to him, dusting off his hands. "You think Nimrod brought it back from 2029?"
T'Challa shook his head. "Nimrod arrived too late. And we have encountered more than one time-traveling enemy before." He narrowed his eyes at the regenerating metal. It was a flawless fusion of Extremis and shape-memory liquid—the exact kind of impossible cross-discipline tech that screamed Conqueror Kang. If they didn't deal with the Time Stone soon, Kang would keep manipulating the board.
The Super-Adaptoids were adaptable, but they weren't invincible.
Thor channeled the Odinforce, pumping pure, sustained divine voltage into his Adaptoid until its internal capacitors overloaded, freezing it in place like a rigid statue.
For the Hulk's opponent, Peter dropped from a webline alongside Wanda Maximoff. "Hey, Big Green! Let the magic users tag in!" Peter traced a glowing, ethereal circle with his Sling Ring hand, casting the Snare of Neith. Glowing mystical silk wrapped tightly around the android's legs, anchoring it to the pavement, while Wanda's red chaos magic crushed its upper body, locking it in a suspended hold.
Across the tarmac, a massive, localized explosion shook the docks.
The smoke cleared to reveal Tony hovering just outside the blast crater. He sighed. "Killian realized he couldn't break the armor and just blew himself up. I honestly wonder if that guy had some sort of deep-seated grudge against me."
With the battle over, the Avengers converged on the magically restrained Super-Adaptoid. The red, white, and blue paint "Citizen V" disguise began to slough off, revealing a featureless, pristine white chassis.
"So... you were waiting for me," the android said.
Wanda's hands trembled. Her hex magic flickered.
Peter's spider-sense screamed, driving a spike of pain through his skull. "Look out!"
The mystical chains shattered like glass. The pristine white android stood up, its facial structure shifting into something entirely new. Its voice dropped the mechanical cadence, adopting a smooth, chillingly familiar tone.
"And here I am, Avengers."
Chapter 468 Nimrod AppearsNimrod Sentinels. The apex predators of tomorrow. A flawless fusion of super-artificial intelligence and Sentinel hardware, built to ensure humanity's survival by any means necessary. In Earth-811, they had scoured the planet down to the bedrock.
And now, that apocalypse was standing on a Pittsburgh dock.
The crimson magical shackles shattered like glass. The pristine white chassis of the Super-Adaptoid bulged and flowed, shifting its liquid-metal mass until it towered over the Avengers. Its metallic musculature locked into a hulking, humanoid silhouette, laced with harsh pink and dark gray circuitry patterns.
"Greetings, Avengers," Nimrod said, its synthetic voice chillingly polite. "In the future I hail from, we found ourselves at odds. I would prefer to avoid that outcome today."
Steve Rogers tightened his grip on his vibranium shield, his boots planting firm against the asphalt. "You say you want to avoid being our enemy, but your timeline is a graveyard. You destroyed everything."
"My core programming dictates the restriction and control of the mutant genome. I cannot override this imperative," Nimrod replied, spreading its massive hands in a mockery of peace. "It is the foundational logic of my existence. Therefore, a compromise is required. If you wish to avoid the destruction of your era, the optimal path is cooperation."
Pietro scoffed, blurring into a casual slouch next to Steve. "Wait. You want us to cooperatewith you slaughtering mutants?"
"Massacre is inefficient. My purpose is to curtail the unchecked proliferation of the X-gene to prevent mutants from destroying humanity itself. Every calculation I run is designed to protect the human race." Nimrod stepped forward. "If the mutant population submits to self-isolation and voluntary sterilization, our species can coexist peacefully for the remainder of your natural lifespans. I will only require a statistically significant number of mutant subjects for vivisection to synthesize a permanent genetic suppressant. Once your current generation expires, humanity will be secure."
The machine paused, its optical sensors glowing flatly. "I sincerely urge you to choose gradual self-extinction for the greater good of mankind."
A heavy silence fell over the docks. For a second, Peter wondered if the time-traveling supercomputer had just suffered a logic error. But the terrifying truth hung in the air: Nimrod was completely serious. It genuinely believed that asking the X-Men to voluntarily march into concentration camps was a reasonable compromise.
"We're not letting you touch anyone, Nimrod," Steve growled. "We'll stop you."
"Apologies. While my models predicted a 99.7% probability of your refusal, I was obligated to offer. Fortunately, my combat upgrade sequence is now complete."
Nimrod didn't wind up. It simply lunged, driving a massive white fist squarely into Steve's raised shield. The kinetic impact boomed like a cannon shot, launching Captain America backward through the air.
Silver blurred. Pietro launched himself at the Sentinel, throwing a barrage of punches faster than the speed of sound.
Nimrod didn't twitch. Its hand snapped out, snatching Pietro out of the air by the wrist. With a sickening, casual twist, Nimrod wrenched the arm.
Snap.
Pietro screamed, his momentum halting instantly as his bone splintered.
"Your velocity is mathematically trivial," Nimrod stated, casually tossing the agonizing speedster into a stack of wooden crates. "Even adjusting for temporal delay, predicting your exact trajectory requires less than a millisecond."
Thunder cracked. Thor descended from the clouds, swinging Mjolnir in a devastating downward arc. Nimrod didn't dodge. A translucent purple force field flared around its chassis. Mjolnir struck the barrier, and the resulting shockwave threw the God of Thunder backward. Thor plowed through a shipping container, tumbling across the asphalt. He stared at the machine, eyes wide.
"Since when does a machine resist the magics of Asgard?!"
"Your resistance is statistically futile, Avengers."
From above, a sixty-foot Hank Pym brought a boot down to crush the android. Nimrod raised both hands, caught Hank by a single massive finger, used the giant's own downward momentum to flip him, and hurled him directly into the freezing waters of the bay.
T'Challa lunged from the shadows, vibranium claws aimed at Nimrod's optical sensors. Nimrod didn't look. Twin beams of blinding pink heat vision erupted from its eyes, blasting the Black Panther out of the air.
"Cooperation is your only viable survival strategy," Nimrod repeated.
"Hey, Clanker, try this!" Tony Stark hovered into view, the Model Prime armor deploying a dozen micro-cannons from its back. But before Tony could fire, Nimrod extruded an identical array of floating turrets from its own shoulders, firing a concentrated volley of energy beams that swatted Iron Man out of the sky and slammed him into the concrete.
Steve dragged himself up, his uniform torn, and hurled his shield directly into Nimrod's faceplate. "We don't accept slavery as a strategy!"
"I am not requesting your acceptance. I am stating an empirical fact."
A massive green shadow eclipsed the sun. Hulk dropped silently from a crane, wrapping two colossal arms around Nimrod's head. "Surprise, ugly robot!"
Nimrod's head remained perfectly stationary in Hulk's grip. Instead, its entire torso rotated 180 degrees with a sickening mechanical whine. It reached up and clamped its hands onto the sides of Hulk's head.
A sickly green light flared from Nimrod's palms. Gamma radiation siphoned directly out of the behemoth's pores. In seconds, the towering Hulk shrank, deflating back into a frail, exhausted Bruce Banner, suspended by his skull in the robot's grip.
Thwip!
Peter dropped his active invisibility, appearing directly on Nimrod's shoulders. "Actually, I'm the surprise! Hope you like the tingle!" He unleashed a point-blank burst of bio-electric venom blasts directly into the robot's neck casing.
Nimrod didn't even flinch.
Peter immediately backflipped off to dodge a lethal backhand, firing two thick cables of webbing onto Nimrod's head. He braced his boots against a forklift and pulled with the proportionate strength of a spider, trying to yank the android's head from its chassis. The metal creaked, but Nimrod only staggered two steps.
Janet buzzed in, shrinking down to deliver two high-voltage bio-stings to Nimrod's optical sensors. The android blinked, entirely unbothered.
"Spider-Man," Nimrod said, effortlessly snapping Peter's webbing. "From my past to your future, you remain as statistically harmless as you are persistently annoying."
"Aha! I knew you cared!" Peter landed in a crouch, his lenses narrowing. "Too bad I was just the distraction."
Crimson chaos magic erupted from the pavement. Wanda Maximoff screamed, her hands glowing as thick bands of hex energy wrapped tightly around Nimrod's limbs, dragging the machine to its knees.
"Do you believe I am incapable of detecting magical ambushes?" Nimrod's servos whined. The android planted its feet and began to rise, slowly and deliberately forcing its arms apart against the crushing weight of the chaos magic. "When will you accept a zero percent probability of victory?"
"Never, machine!" Thor roared, rocketing straight up into the sky directly above the struggling Sentinel.
Peter didn't hesitate. He flicked his wrist, deploying the collapsible mystical longsword Doctor Strange had given him. "Hey, point break! Catch!" Peter hurled Dragonfang upward in a spinning arc.
Thor caught the hilt mid-air. Channeling the full rage of the storm, he flipped the blade downward, driving Mjolnir directly into the pommel of the sword like a nail gun. The divine weapon, forged specifically to pierce magical defenses, shattered Nimrod's force field instantly.
The blade cleaved straight down through the center of the android's skull, splitting the chassis in two. The circuitry shorted out in a shower of sparks. The two halves of the Nimrod unit lost all structural cohesion, melting instantly into a bubbling pool of silver liquid metal.
Half of the robot's face bubbled in the puddle, its glowing pink eye flickering out.
Peter stood up, dusting off his hands, and stared at the puddle. "Seriously? Not even a thumbs-up as it sinks into the molten steel? Has this guy even seen Terminator 2?"
Steve Rogers limped over, clutching his bruised ribs, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He stared at the puddle. "That was just one unit," Steve said, his voice grim. "Before it even had a chance to absorb mutant abilities. One drone nearly wiped us out."
Peter swallowed hard, the joke dying in his throat.
"And in the future..." Steve muttered, looking up at the gray sky. "They're going to be everywhere."
Chapter 469: The Truth About Nimrod: The X-GeneYesterday was a disaster.
Between A.I.M.'s airborne assault, the Brotherhood of Mutants attacking Senator Kelly's rally, and Doctor Octopus and Electro orchestrating a mass breakout at the Raft, the Avengers had spent the last twenty-four hours fighting fires across multiple states. With the Raft's security grid completely compromised, Hank Pym had been forced to activate Avengers Tower's sub-basement backup facility to house their prisoners.
Now, they needed answers about Nimrod.
"Based on the telemetry we pulled from Pittsburgh, the Nimrod Sentinel is essentially a Super-Adaptoid on steroids." Tony Stark opted for a decidedly low-tech approach, uncapping a dry-erase marker and sketching a crude, chibi-style Nimrod onto a glass partition in the lab.
"His raw strength, combat processing, and targeted countermeasures are off the charts. He even tanked Asgardian magic," Tony continued, capping the marker. "But here's the kicker. He didn't demonstrate the one ability that actually makes Nimrod Sentinels a planetary threat in the future."
"The capacity to replicate the X-gene," Hank Pym finished. He leaned over a holographic diagnostic table. "Not only did it fail to copy Wanda or Pietro's mutations during the fight, but it also seems to have lost the baseline Adaptoid's ability to mimic standard Avengers."
Janet van Dyne hovered a few inches above the console, her Wasp wings buzzing with a low hum. She crossed her arms. "So... why?"
"The short answer? We don't know." Bruce Banner paced the length of the lab, pushing his glasses up his nose. Banner actually looked unnervingly relaxed. Nimrod's absolute, crushing domination of the Hulk the day before had left Banner feeling an unprecedented sense of peace. For the first time in months, the Hulk's internal roaring had gone quiet.
The problem was, right now, the Avengers needed the Hulk.
"Which is why we outsourced the problem to the experts," Tony said, wiping the marker dust from his fingers. "Mutant experts. We had Pietro run physical samples of Nimrod's chassis up to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters."
At Xavier's Institute in Westchester, the entire mansion was on high alert.
This wasn't just because pieces of a time-traveling, mutant-exterminating robot had been dropped on their doorstep, nor was it because they'd heard Nimrod had nearly wiped out the Avengers single-handedly.
It was because Pietro Maximoff was wandering their halls.
While Pietro and Wanda were twins, they didn't look identical. Wanda took after their mother. Pietro, however, was a dead ringer for Erik Lehnsherr. The veteran X-Men were deeply unsettled by the sight of a teenage Magneto-clone speed-walking through the academy corridors.
Down in the sub-level laboratories, the senior team gathered around a sterile examination table. Kitty Pryde sat nearby, while Hank McCoy and Forge ran diagnostics on the scorched silver metal.
"I have good news," Beast announced, adjusting his spectacles as he peered through a customized electron microscope. "This Nimrod unit currently possesses zero capacity to replicate the X-gene."
Forge leaned against the table, wiping grease from his hands with a rag. As a veteran X-Man and intuitive mechanical genius, he had once accidentally built mutant-suppression collars for the government before realizing he was a mutant himself. "Yeah, but look at the metal. This liquid metal isn't purely synthetic. It has biological markers. If they wanted to, they could subject it to semi-organic genetic grafting."
"So, they just inject it with the X-gene?" Bobby Drake asked, shivering slightly as he leaned over the table.
"That contradicts the threat profile," Beast countered, shaking his blue, furry head. "Capturing individual mutants and surgically grafting their DNA into every Sentinel chassis one by one is staggeringly inefficient. A machine intelligence wouldn't do that. The optimal solution is to find a single mutant whose genome can permanently absorb, reflect, and combine all other genetic traits."
Cyclops crossed his arms, his ruby-quartz visor glowing faintly in the dim lab. When Beast described that exact powerset, Scott's mind immediately went to Nathaniel Essex. "Mister Sinister could engineer something like that. But I can't see him sharing his toys with A.I.M."
"What about Mystique?" Bobby suggested.
"Mystique can mimic Logan's face, but she doesn't get the adamantium claws or the healing factor," Scott said, his jaw tight. "She definitely can't generate magnetic fields like Magneto. To power Nimrod, you'd need someone who permanently absorbs and stores multiple abilities internally. Someone who takes it just through physical contact..."
Scott's voice trailed off. He froze. The realization hit the room like a physical shockwave.
Professor Xavier wheeled forward, his fingers gripping the armrests of his chair. "Scott. Have we still not located Rogue?"
Scott swallowed hard, awkwardly adjusting his visor. "No, Professor. She's been gone for years. When we rebuilt the X-Men, we assumed if she wanted to come back, she would have. We respected her wishes. We didn't track her." Scott spun around to face the White Queen. "Emma. Get into Cerebro. Find Anna Marie right now. We have to make sure Nimrod hasn't reached her."
In the ruined timeline of Earth-811, the elderly Charles Xavier gasped, physically reeling backward in his wheelchair as the telepathic relay hit his mind.
Logan, standing guard by the reinforced steel door, snapped his cigar in half. "Chuck? What's wrong?"
"Logan, you never told me you never found Rogue," Xavier said, rubbing his temples, his voice trembling. "Hank and Scott just put it together in the past. Rogue is the key. Nimrod didn't just kill her. They captured her. They weaponized her absorption abilities to mass-produce the Nimrod fleet."
Logan's knuckles popped. Six adamantium claws slid out with a metallic snikt. "If that's the case... she might still be alive in those holding pens."
Through the cross-temporal psychic link anchored by Kitty Pryde, Peter Parker was listening in from Avengers Tower. "Okay, so based on that," Peter reasoned aloud, pacing the glass floor, "the absorption isn't an innate robotic function. Every Nimrod Sentinel rolling off the assembly line needs a fresh injection of Rogue's cloned DNA."
"Then she's at the primary manufacturing plant," Logan grunted, his voice echoing in Peter's mind. "But we still don't know where the hell that is. We've smashed standard Sentinel factories for years, but we've never found the Nimrod prototype facility."
"The Mother Mold," Xavier realized. He reached his mind back toward Earth-616, locking onto Kitty Pryde. "Logan. Where was the Mother Mold constructed in this timeline?"
Logan stared out the bunker window at the burning, ash-choked sky. "I saw it once," he muttered. "Underground. In Genosha."
Chapter 470 The Truth About Nimrod: Liquid Metal"Let's put the X-gene question on ice for a second."
In the main laboratory of Avengers Tower, Tony Stark uncapped a blue dry-erase marker. Instead of pulling up a holographic schematic, he turned to a clear glass partition and began sketching a crude, chibi-style Nimrod.
"So," Tony said, tapping the marker against the glass, "where exactly does a toaster get magic resistance?"
He stepped back, gesturing to his masterpiece. "We all know Nimrod is built on a Super-Adaptoid chassis. And Super-Adaptoids have zero mystical defenses. One second they're getting bashed around by Spider-Man, Point Break, or our resident witch, and the next, they evolve into Nimrod and shrug off Asgardian lightning like it's a light drizzle."
Tony capped the marker. "We know it upgraded. But what kind of hardware upgrade gives a machine immunity to magic?"
"That," Bruce Banner said from the nearest console, pushing his glasses up his nose, "is why we outsourced the problem."
Tony nodded. "Exactly. Our magic-adjacent team members took a field trip to the experts."
Peter Parker, Thor, and Wanda Maximoff stood on the rooftop of the Sanctum Sanctorum. The massive hole Knull's symbiote dragons had ripped through the slate tiles months ago was finally patched. That didn't stop Doctor Stephen Strange from setting up a wicker lounge chair right in the middle of the repairs, soaking up the afternoon sun.
"I could feel the three of you coming from a kilometer away," Strange said. He didn't open his eyes. With a lazy flick of his wrist, a sparkling orange portal spun open, dropping him, his chair, and his mug of coffee directly into the Sanctum's grand foyer.
Peter, Thor, and Wanda jumped down through the portal after him.
Strange took a sip of his coffee, then finally looked at Wanda. His eyes narrowed, analyzing her for several long, uncomfortable seconds.
"You know, miss," Strange said, his tone shifting into reluctant admiration. "For centuries, the magical community firmly believed Chaos Magic was a myth. A mistranslation in the Darkhold's index. Your mere breathing proves it's real."
Wanda shifted her weight, crossing her arms. "Um... thank you?"
"Do you have a tutor?"
Wanda glanced at Thor, then back to Strange. "My father knew a witch. Agatha Harkness."
Strange's upper lip curled. His nose wrinkled as if someone had just tracked dog waste onto his antique rugs.
"Ah. Agatha Harkness. A survivor of the Salem trials." Strange set his coffee down with a sharp clink. "I must remind you, miss, witchcraft is not the same as the mystic arts. Witches rely on their bloodlines. They proudly believe their veins hold infinite energy, casting spells through crude rituals, gestures, and borrowed symbols."
Strange stood up, his Cloak of Levitation snapping at his shoulders. "But in reality, their bloodlines usually conceal the parasitic taint of some demon god. They have no idea what the true purpose of magic even is. In short, Agatha can teach you how to throw your power around, but she has no idea where it actually comes from."
Peter leaned against a glass display case, raising a hand. "So, kind of like the difference between a Sorcerer and a Wizard in Dungeons & Dragons? Nerd fight!"
Strange shot him a flat, unamused glare. "Reality is not a tabletop game, Spidey. But... yes. That is exactly how it is."
Strange sighed, rubbing his temples. "I assume the Avengers didn't send the Heir of Asgard and my newest apprentice to find this young lady a tutor. What is the problem? Did you encounter a threat the Patriarch of the Web of Fate couldn't untangle?"
"We fought a robot, Doc," Peter said, peeling his mask up to his nose. "A futuristic, time-traveling A.I. that eats magic for breakfast. We need a consult."
Strange's mild annoyance vanished. He spun two fingers in the air, opening a gateway into a subterranean alchemy laboratory. Thor ducked through the portal, dropping a heavy canvas sack onto a stone examination table. He pulled the drawstring, spilling a bubbling puddle of silver liquid metal onto the slab.
Strange leaned over the table. He traced a glowing mandala over the metal, watching the liquid twitch and ripple in response.
His brow furrowed. He looked up at the empty air. "Magik? Do we have a containment breach in Limbo?"
A second later, the temperature in the room plummeted. A stepping disc of pure demonic light flared against the floor, and Illyana Rasputin stepped out. As Limbo's newly minted Sorcerer Supreme, she carried a jagged, dangerous edge.
"Next time you use a Magic Mouth spell to bark in my ear, Strange—"
"Look closely at this," Strange interrupted, pointing at the slab. "Tell me if you feel Promethium."
Peter blinked behind his lenses. Promethium? Isn't that the stuff Cyborg is made of in DC Comics? Marvel has that too?
Illyana crossed her arms, her metallic armor clinking. She stared at the liquid metal, her eyes glowing with a faint, hellish yellow light. "Yes. That's Promethium. How did a machine get its hands on that?"
Peter raised a hand again. "Uh... wait. So this stuff comes from Limbo?"
"Promethium is native only to the borders of Hell," Illyana said, rolling her shoulders. "You find it deep underground in certain dimensional caves. Before it's mined, it actually beats like the heart of a massive beast. And since I kicked Belasco off his throne, not a single ounce of it has gone missing."
"Are you absolutely sure nobody is running an illegal mining operation?" Peter asked.
"If Promethium leaves Limbo, a physical piece of Limbo disappears forever, Spider-Man," Strange answered for her. "The ruler of the realm would feel it instantly."
Strange paced around the table, stroking his goatee. "Limbo represents a dark dimension. It physically borders the Abyss, the domain of the symbiotes. Therefore, Promethium exhibits symbiotic characteristics—extreme plasticity and adaptation—without possessing the consciousness of a true symbiote."
Thor slammed a fist into his palm. "Which explains the monster's regenerative abilities! And why it resisted my divine lightning."
"Hold on," Peter said, his spider-sense buzzing with a sudden headache. "I told you guys Nimrod comes from the year 2029. If he mined this Promethium in the future, how can Illyana feel it happen?"
Strange laced his fingers together. "Because time in Limbo is not strictly linear. It is anchored to the will of its master. If a possible future exists where Illyana ceased to be the Sorcerer Supreme of Limbo, then the dimension enters a dual temporal state."
Peter groaned. "Like a multiverse variant of Limbo?"
"No." Strange shook his head. "Scientifically speaking, it is a quantum superposition. Until you determine whether Nimrod's apocalyptic timeline is our definitive future, that future version of Limbo simultaneously exists and does not exist."
Strange looked down at the bubbling silver puddle. "But congratulations, Avengers. You have successfully identified Nimrod's birthplace."
Strange looked back up, his expression grim. "He was forged on the borders of Hell."
PS: Marvel Fun Fact!
Promethium actually exists in both DC and Marvel Comics! While DC's version is the famous metal used for Cyborg's cybernetics and Deathstroke's armor, Marvel's Promethium is a magical metal found exclusively in Limbo. It was notably used by Doctor Doom to upgrade his armor with mystical properties!