In the moment between death and something worse, Amon laughed.
Not because he found it funny—though he did—but because it was the only sound worthy of the absurdity.
The world around him had imploded, then exploded, then reimploded in a spectacle only a true Madman could orchestrate. Klein Moretti, my dear brother… you actually did it, Amon thought, suspended in the amber light of Klein's final move—Supernova—a concept too vast, too wrong, to have ever been part of this reality. Too final. Too human.
He had not thought Klein capable of it. Of embracing totality and madness in the same breath. Of turning his very existence into a collapsing star of divinity and concept. But then again, even Amon had to admit—only the truly mad understood the value of an ending.
Divinity unraveled. Time twisted upon itself. The threads of fate, the veil of secrecy, the mask of immortality—ripped clean from Amon's being. He felt them fracture. Not shattered, no. Fractured. Like glass that still held its shape but would never be whole again.
He remembered the last thing he saw before the universe folded in on itself: Klein smiling sadly, mask gone, eyes gleaming with understanding. The Fool had become the truth. And Amon—the Lie given form—was cast out by the light of that unbearable certainty.
Beautiful, Amon had thought, just before his form was swallowed by the infinite.
And yet—
He survived.
Somehow, impossibly, insultingly—he persisted.
Not in that world. Not in the Sea of Chaos or on the edge of the Spirit World. No, this place was other. A cracked mirror of reality with all its colors too bright, its air too stiff, its rules... laughable.
Amon opened his eyes, not with a gasp but with a sigh.
He stood.
A stone street beneath his feet, slick with recent rain. The sky was black and orange, not from twilight but pollution. Towering buildings of steel and glass loomed around him. Neon signs flickered in a language he didn't know—but immediately understood. Cars passed by in clean lines, their drivers oblivious to the fact that something that should not be had entered their world.
Amon blinked once, letting the new world's laws settle into his senses like slipping on a new set of gloves. Physics responded. Logic hesitated. Causality whimpered.
Then bowed.
His breath fogged slightly. The scent of gasoline and fast food clung to the air. Somewhere far above, a digital billboard blared snippets of news: "...the world still in mourning after the Blip… sightings of anomalies in New York increase… new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. refuses comment…"
Curious. Amon tilted his head, monocle gleaming. "So this world has suffered a half-death of its own," he whispered, amused.
He looked down at himself. Coat: intact. Gloves: pristine. Hat: still charming. And in his pocket, cool against his skin, was the monocle—the one that always knew more than it let on.
He placed it over his right eye and gasped quietly—not in shock, but in delight.
The world reflected differently here. Cruder. Less… esoteric. But so much more fun.
Lines of power etched themselves across buildings. Invisible networks hummed with secrets. Entities watched from the edges—some divine, some technological, none capable of truly seeing him. The Rules were weaker here. No Sequences, no Beyonder paths, no anchoring Aether. Just raw will, myths turned public, science dressed as magic, and gods who pretended to be human.
"Oh," he murmured. "This one runs on heroes."
He grinned. It stretched past normal, polite limits.
A ripple of laughter escaped him, thin and quiet. He walked down the sidewalk unnoticed, hands behind his back, cane tapping in sync with traffic lights. His shoes made no sound on the wet pavement.
Somewhere above, a flying man in red and gold passed by with a sonic boom.
To Amon, it was the sound of opportunity.
A new world. A new game. And best of all, a world where no one knew his name. No preparations. No prophecies. No Seers waiting with contingency plans. No Mirror of Sages watching his every move.
He paused by a puddle and looked at his reflection.
It stared back, smiling. And then, quite without asking permission, winked.
"You're not supposed to be here," it whispered.
"I never was," Amon replied.
He stood there for a while, letting the silence of the world fill him. No Choirs. No Anchor. No other Outer Deities pressing in. Just himself, alone, with the fractured remnants of Door and Error stirring like ghosts in his blood.
The Door had opened when it should not have. And the Error had survived when it had no right to.
He reached inside himself, mentally. There were pieces missing—tiny slivers of divinity left behind in Klein's explosion. But something new coiled there as well. Multiversal drift, perhaps. Residue of that goddamn starburst Klein had become. It had flung him like a stone through mirrors until he landed here.
"How careless of Klein," Amon said aloud with mock regret. "To throw me into the sandbox of another reality. Alone. Bored. Free."
A god with no cult, in a world with no memory of him.
It was almost insulting.
It was almost perfect.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed a man in a dark trench coat glance his way. A hardened gaze. A hand near a weapon. A faint trace of surveillance tech embedded in his retina.
S.H.I.E.L.D., Amon thought, the name already in his mind before he finished analyzing the man's behavior. Or perhaps a splinter group.
The man blinked—and Amon was gone.
No footsteps. No sound. Only a faint glint where the monocle had caught the moonlight.
Elsewhere, a traffic camera tried to replay the footage.
What it found instead was a perfectly normal scene. Pedestrians. Rain. Nothing strange.
Except… one frame.
One single frame that refused to be deleted or overwritten. A blurry man in black, smiling directly at the camera. Hat tilted, cane raised like a gentleman greeting an old friend.
His name tag read: "Error 404."
Amon strolled through a plaza next. Here, the masses gathered in silence before a massive memorial, names etched into stone. Half the world's population gone and returned. Grief still lingered like a fine mist in the air.
He crouched, brushed a finger along the name "Peter Parker," then let it go.
"You were resurrected. Good for you," he said, rising. "Let's see what you do with it."
Children played nearby, unaware. An old man fed pigeons. The world tried to heal itself.
And Amon?
He planned his next act.
He stopped at the edge of a rooftop that night, perched like a gargoyle above the city. Below, lights flickered in rows—order, civility, law. How fragile it all was.
He removed his monocle and looked with bare eyes. The world was still beautiful. Still blind.
The monocle glinted again between his fingers. Within it, he saw ripples—threads of other worlds. One with dragons and demon kings. Another with dungeons and gods in human skin. A city of devils hiding in school uniforms. A realm ruled by fate and spinning cups.
And Klein… somewhere distant still. Watching? Or done?
"I don't intend to go back," Amon said, softly. "Not yet. Not until I've thoroughly misbehaved."
He placed the monocle back on and took a step forward.
The wind obeyed.
Far below, a boy looked up and caught a glimpse of a man walking on air.
Just a man in a coat and top hat, smiling at nothing.
But in the boy's reflection—he wore no face at all.