The crystal heart of the Observatory pulsed with a softer light than usual, as if even the cosmic machinery could sense the grief hanging in the air. Wolvie sat cross-legged on the floor, carefully drawing with purple crayon on a piece of paper. His tiny tongue stuck out in concentration as he worked on getting Li'l Magneto's oversized helmet just right.
"There," he whispered to himself, holding up the drawing. "Now Max won't be forgotten."
The rest of the Exiles had gathered around Blink near the main console. She was running diagnostics, but her movements were sharp and agitated.
"We need to debrief," she said without looking up. "The Unseen has to know the Time-Eater's accelerating. What happened back there..." She trailed off, her jaw tightening.
Dean slumped against a crystal pillar, still processing everything. "Those kids were so innocent. And we couldn't even save them both."
"Sometimes the hardest battles are those that remind us what we fight for," Valkyrie said quietly, watching Wolvie add finishing touches to his drawing.
Nathaniel was scanning the Observatory with his armor's sensors. "I'm detecting Fury's presence, but there's something else. Strange energy signatures. He's... not alone."
Khan looked up sharply. "What kind of strange?"
Before Nathaniel could answer, the Observatory's crystals began to dim. One by one, the lights faded until they were standing in an eerie twilight that felt heavy with cosmic dread.
"Uh, guys?" Dean pushed himself off the pillar. "Is it just me, or does it feel like the universe just held its breath?"
The answer came as reality itself seemed to ripple. The air grew thick and oppressive, like the moment before a thunderstorm, but magnified a thousandfold. Even Li'l Wolvie stopped drawing, his tiny claws instinctively extending.
"Something big is coming," he whispered.
Three massive figures phased into existence around them—beings so enormous that the Observatory's vast chamber suddenly felt cramped. They wore flowing robes that seemed to be cut from the fabric of space itself, and their faces were hidden beneath hoods that cast shadows deeper than black holes.
The Tribunal of Watchers had arrived.
"Nicholas Fury, called the Unseen," the center figure spoke, its voice echoing with the weight of eons. "You have broken the sacred vow of non-interference."
From the shadows near the Observatory's edge, Fury stepped forward. His cosmic awareness flickered around him like heat waves, but his expression was calm, almost bored.
"I broke it a long time ago," he said, not bothering to look impressed by the cosmic judges looming over him. "You're just late catching up."
The Exiles instinctively moved closer together, forming a protective line between the Watchers and Li'l Wolvie. Blink's hands were already glowing with portal energy, while Valkyrie's grip tightened on her sword.
"The multiverse suffers because of your actions," another Watcher intoned. "Timelines collapse. Realities bleed into one another. The Time-Eater grows stronger."
"And what would you have me do?" Fury's voice carried a dangerous edge. "Stand by and watch while everything burns? That's your way, not mine."
Dean felt a familiar tingle at the base of his skull—his system was acting up again. The interface flickered to life in his peripheral vision:
[KARMIC BATTERY: +25 UNITS]
[ACTION: Participating in Wolvie's Protection]
[TOTAL CHARGE: 100/100 (TIER-0)]
"Your Exiles are an abomination," the third Watcher declared, its attention turning to the team. "Mortals wielding power beyond their understanding, meddling in affairs that shape the very foundations of existence."
"Hey!" Khan stepped forward, her fists clenched. "We're trying to help people!"
"Your intentions are irrelevant. The damage you cause ripples across infinite realities."
Wolvie tugged on Blink's coat. "These guys are really mean," he whispered. "They remind me of the grumpy teachers back on Mojoworld."
Nathaniel's armor was flashing warnings in multiple languages. "Their power readings are off the charts. These beings could unmake us with a thought."
"Then wherefore have they not struck already?" Valkyrie asked, her warrior instincts reading the situation. "They possess the power to smite us with but a thought."
The center Watcher raised one massive hand, cosmic energy crackling between its fingers. "The sentence for interference is exile from existence itself. You will be removed from the timestream, erased from all possible futures."
"No." Fury stepped directly into the path of the building energy. "You want to blame someone? Blame me. Leave the kids out of this."
"The choice is not yours to make."
The Watcher's hand came down, and reality shrieked as a beam of pure cosmic force lanced toward the group. In that split second, several things happened at once.
Wolvie saw the energy heading for his friends and did what any hero would do—he launched himself through the air with a tiny battle cry, trying to intercept the beam.
"Wolvie, no!" Blink's portal opened instantly, grabbing the small mutant out of harm's way just as the cosmic energy struck her Tallus device instead.
The universe held its breath.
Then Blink's Tallus exploded in a catastrophic burst of purple fire and crystalline fragments. Reality itself seemed to crack like glass, sending shockwaves through the very fabric of space and time. The device shattered completely, its pieces dissolving into pure temporal energy that cascaded across the Observatory's crystal walls like liquid lightning.
Time itself screamed—a sound like every clock in existence breaking at once, like the death cry of eternity itself. Alarms that existed in dimensions the Exiles couldn't even perceive began wailing in harmonics that made their bones ache.
"NO!" Blink yelled, clutching her wrist where the device had been. The purple flames spread up her arm, but they weren't burning her—they were unmaking her connection to the timestream itself. Reality warped around her like a broken mirror, reflecting infinite versions of herself across fractured dimensions.
The Observatory began to shake apart. Crystal formations that had stood for eons cracked and tumbled. The cosmic heart of the station—their only anchor in the chaotic currents of the multiverse—started to collapse as the temporal explosion spread outward in waves.
"By Odin's beard! All must stay together!" Valkyrie shouted over the dimensional shrieking.
But it was too late. A massive vortex opened beneath them, pulling with the force of a cosmic drain. The Exiles were drawn into the Timestream itself, each beginning to spiral away from the others as reality came apart around them.
"Blink!" Dean reached for her, but the currents were too strong.
"I can't control it!" she called back, her portal powers flickering wildly. "The Tallus was our anchor! Without it—"
Khan grabbed Wolvie as they both tumbled through cascading time fragments. "I've got you, little guy!"
"This is highly irregular!" Nathaniel's voice doppler-shifted as he spun away from the group, his armor's systems failing to compensate for the temporal chaos.
The Watchers observed impassively as their judgment played out. The Observatory crumbled around them, but they remained untouched, eternal and unmoved.
Fury watched his Exiles disappear into the timestream, his expression unreadable. "You've just made the biggest mistake in cosmic history," he told the Tribunal quietly.
"We have corrected an error," the center Watcher replied. "The mortals will find their own paths now, if they survive. As for you, Nicholas Fury—your punishment has only begun."
The team that had saved countless realities was now just six individuals falling through the dark between dimensions, with no way home and no way to find each other.
The real trial of the Exiles was about to begin.