Truly, sometimes a person could be so very intelligent, but so very unwise.
Trask had created machines capable of learning, adapting, and improving themselves, but apparently never considered what would happen once those machines applied his hatred with perfect logic.
Or perhaps he had considered it and simply believed he would remain exempt.
Either possibility spoke poorly of him.
I leaned back against my throne, looking over the holographic image that still floated in the centre of the hall.
The Nexus.
An underground fortress containing the central intelligence behind the Sentinels, protected by enough conventional weaponry to repel an army, and enough specialised technology to render many of the Illuminati powerless.
It was an impressive structure.
A foolish one as well.
No matter how thoroughly fortified it might be, concentrating the heart of an entire army into one location created an obvious weakness. The difficulty lay not in understanding what needed to be done, but in surviving long enough to do it.
"We will need more information before we move," I said. "The exterior defences are visible enough, but the interior remains largely unknown."
"Indeed," Agravain agreed. "And the enemy is aware that the central core is vulnerable. It would be foolish to assume the paths leading toward it are less protected than the fortress itself."
"More so if Trask left behind a means to destroy it should someone else gain control."
"Or if the intelligence developed such a measure on its own."
That was also possible.
The Sentinels had changed greatly since their first appearance. The machines we faced now were no longer limited by whatever their creators had originally imagined. They had learned from every battle, every defeat, and every victory.
They had begun as tools.
What they had become was less clear.
The doors to the throne room opened again.
Captain Rogers stepped inside.
He looked as though he had come directly from the battlefield without stopping to so much as wash his face.
His uniform was torn and stained black by smoke, with one sleeve almost entirely missing. His shield remained strapped to his arm, though its once-pristine surface was covered in scorch marks and deep scratches left by weapons that would have torn a lesser object apart.
Blood covered his hands.
Judging by the absence of any serious injuries upon him, most of it was not his.
"You are late."
For a brief moment, the words seemed obvious enough that I almost believed Agravain had spoken them.
Captain Rogers was, after all, the one who had arrived only after the meeting had ended and everyone else had departed.
Yet Agravain had said nothing.
The captain's tired gaze remained fixed upon me.
"But better late than never," Steve continued.
There was no smile upon his face.
Neither was there true condemnation.
There was exhaustion, relief, and beneath both, understanding. He understood perfectly well the cost of difficult decisions.
Had he not once arrived late for a dance with the woman he loved?
Doing what he thought was right, what he thought he had to do, had cost those closest to him a friend, a future, and him seventy long years.
"Sir Rogers! Such disrespect toward His Majesty won't be tolerated!" Sir Agravain was quick to defend me.
Yet I simply raised a hand to stop him. "Indeed, I have missed much in my absence," I fully admitted.
I could have told him that only days had passed for us, that the barriers dividing Hell from the mortal world had twisted the passage of time, or that we had returned as soon as we possibly could.
But I didn't. Because he wasn't wrong. I was indeed late.
Something I fully suspected was caused by the Lords of Hell, purposefully messing with the flow of time as much as possible.
I had underestimated them, seeing them as beings to be fought, but I had forgotten that they were even less human than I was and saw things such as time differently; to them, it was more... fluid.
Something that could be touched and manipulated.
The hubris of a god indeed.
Just because the TVA had been powerless against me, I had forgotten the power of time.
And now, I was paying the price for that mistake.
Steve released a long breath through his nose.
"Good to have you back."
"It is good to be back, Captain."
His eyes moved briefly toward Agravain, then toward the holographic map hovering before us.
"I take it I missed the meeting."
"It wasn't much of a meeting; everyone is tired, so I sent them to rest, something you too appear to need," I replied.
"I'm fine," he said with a slight shake of his head, but he didn't press the subject.
He was a soldier; he understood the need to rest and regroup, even if he was not one to follow his own advice.
I could see from his face, his eyes, that he had something on his mind, so I didn't force him to rest, not just yet.
So for a moment, the three of us simply remained silent.
Finally, he couldn't hold it in and failed to outlast Agravain and me in this silent staring contest.
"Was it worth it?"
Was it worth it?
I sat back and considered the question, considering whether it had indeed been worth it.
But in the end, there was only one answer.
"Yes. Do I have regrets? Also yes. But at the time, it was indeed the correct choice. The problem needed to be handled, and only I could do it."
To say I had no regrets would be a lie; I only had to delay a little bit, and I could have dealt with the issue as it arose, or left behind more Enforcement Knights...
There were countless things I could have done differently.
But in the end, I didn't forget why I did this, or who asked for my help.
The Ancient One.
Was it possible she wasn't aware that this would have happened?
Impossible; she knew the future, saw the infinite possibilities.
The only way she wouldn't was if she were dead, but I had heard no such thing, nor did I think she was at risk of dying.
Stephen Strange wasn't yet ready.
And until she had a successor in place, she wouldn't let herself die.
Which meant that she knew.
She knew about the Sentinels and didn't tell me.
Why?
Because she saw what I would do in response to that; she saw what would happen, how the knowledge would change things.
And in the end, she came to the conclusion that not telling me was the only way.
Or at least, those were my thoughts on the matter.
Which clearly meant that any actions trying to avoid the current situation would only have brought about a far worse one.
Did I have regrets?
Yes.
But I would do it all over again if I had to.
Because I trusted the Ancient One. I trusted the experience of someone that old and wise.
Steve didn't know my thoughts; he just nodded at my response.
"Did you already tell the others about your situation?"
"Not in any great detail."
His brow furrowed.
"Why not?"
"You have seen the state everyone is in. The Sentinels rather dominated the conversation."
Steve glanced toward the holographic image of the Nexus still floating in the middle of the throne room.
"I noticed."
He remained quiet for a moment before looking back at me.
"But you disappeared for seven weeks fighting a war in Hell."
"For us, it was considerably less."
"Seven weeks here," he corrected.
Fair enough.
"Seven weeks here."
"And nobody thought to ask what happened?"
Agravain shifted slightly beside me.
"Captain Rogers, there were rather immediate matters requiring—"
"I'm not blaming anyone," Steve interrupted, raising one hand. "I get it. We had Sentinels killing people all over the planet. Tony and Reed were probably already thinking about that bunker before they walked through the door."
That was almost certainly true.
"But one crisis doesn't make the other one disappear."
There it was.
The reason I had placed this man in command of people who were stronger than him, smarter than him, wealthier than him, and possessed powers he could never hope to match.
He looked at the person lying beneath the rubble.
But he also looked beyond them.
Not because that single life mattered less, but because he understood that saving one person today meant little if the world ended tomorrow.
"So," Steve continued, "what happened in Hell?"
I considered where to begin.
There was rather a lot.
"We won."
Steve stared at me.
"Arthuria."
"You asked what happened."
"And I'm asking for slightly more than two words."
I couldn't help the faint smile that appeared on my face.
"Very well."
I leaned back into my throne.
"The coalition fractured. Their cooperation was always built upon convenience rather than loyalty, and once sufficient pressure was applied, that weakness became increasingly obvious."
Steve stepped farther into the room, finally removing his shield from his arm and resting its edge against the floor.
"Who was in the coalition?"
"Mephisto, Satannish, Nightmare, D'Spayre, and Dormammu were the principal powers involved."
He looked focused for a moment before he faltered.
"I admit those names mean little to me," he said, somewhat embarrassed.
"Agravain, we should have a brief about them somewhere, right?" I asked my knight, who simply nodded.
"I will have it delivered to you within the hour, Captain Rogers."
"It's fine," Steve said with a shake of his head.
"Mephisto was the mastermind, the one who drew the others together and promised a fair split of humanity, endless suffering, and billions of souls. Alone, he is indeed strong enough to claim a world if not stopped; all together? Even survival would be a miracle, much less the victory we earned," I summarized.
"That bad?" Steve looked a little pale as he considered what that meant.
"Their armies alone are without end, and their powers, if fully unleashed on Earth, would be enough to shove the continents around like Lego bricks. And they brought not only their armies, but themselves."
Steve did his best to imagine it, but it was difficult. Before going into the ice, the strongest beings around had been himself and Red Skull. Now? Well, it was hard to imagine just how strong someone would have to be to move continents around.
Doing such a thing was naturally nearly impossible; even I couldn't do it, not easily at least, but that was only when looking at things from a human perspective.
For a being who ruled a dimension, they had infinite dimensional energy behind them and the powers of laws; they wouldn't really be pushing continents around, but imposing their will upon them, forcing them to move after corrupting them.
Without the magical defenses of the sorcerers and the Ancient One, any single one of these beings could twist all of Earth into their own domain and fully control it.
Dormammu had once, or would in the future, almost succeed in this, stopped only by the introduction of the concept of time by Stephen Strange.
Such things weren't easily explained, but at least Steve understood that the threat they hadn't seen, the one that had been handled without them, was far worse than the Sentinels.
One was the extermination of humanity by robots, or at least the risk of it, and the other was not just death, but eternal torment of the soul.
Not to mention, even without me taking action, they could still have dealt with the Sentinels; it would just have cost more lives. But without me, should the Lords of Hell align and unite, they would have been powerless to stop it.
Or at least, they would have needed far more extreme measures.
Steve continued to ask questions, and I continued to answer them, both highlighting the danger Earth had faced, but also reassuring him that, at least for now, the danger posed by demons and such was gone.
And that he could rest easy for at least a night before worrying further about the Sentinels.
...
"You allow him far too much disrespect, my lord," Agravain said once Steve finally went to join the others for a meal before sleep.
"He is a warrior; he isn't suited for royal court, and he has just fought for our realm. We can allow him this much at least," I replied, not caring too much about it.
"As you say, Your Majesty," he said with a bow. "Will you be joining the feast yourself?"
"No, I will wait until the true victory feast. For now, I have much to do," I said as I stood up and walked to the balcony connected to the throne room.
"Should you not take your own advice and rest?" Agravain asked, not because he wanted to command me, but because he was concerned.
"I am a goddess; rest is not a must, merely an option," I said, even though that wasn't entirely true; it was still needed.
To deny myself my own mortal limits would push me further toward divinity.
All things came with a cost.
"Now, go rest and feast; I have matters I need to deal with," I dismissed him.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
He bowed and left.
(End of chapter)
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