The God floated closer, its impossible form casting shadows that defied the laws of light. It approached Thor first, and the God of Thunder instinctively raised Mjolnir in defense—not threateningly, but protectively, the way one might shield oneself from an oncoming wave.
The God's appendage—simultaneously a hand, a tendril of energy, and a concept made manifest—touched Mjolnir's surface.
The hammer screamed.
Not in pain—in transcendence. Runes that had been carved by Odin himself suddenly blazed with light that hadn't existed in creation yet. New inscriptions appeared, written in the language of spacetime itself, equations and symbols that described the fundamental forces of reality. The hammer grew warm, then hot, then impossibly cold, cycling through temperatures that would have vaporized normal matter.
Thor gasped as knowledge flooded into his mind—not learned, but downloaded directly into his divine consciousness. He suddenly understood that Mjolnir wasn't just a weapon that controlled storms and lightning. It was a key, a tool for manipulating the very fabric of dimensional barriers.
"By Odin..." he whispered, staring at his hammer with new eyes. "Each strike... each swing..."
"Can now punch holes through dimensions themselves," the God finished. "Space is merely suggestion when you wield that hammer now, Thor Odinson."
Thor swung Mjolnir experimentally. The hammer moved through the air, leaving a trail of shimmering distortion. Where it passed, reality tore like paper, revealing glimpses of other universes—one where dinosaurs still ruled Earth, another where humanity had colonized the stars, a third where everything was made of cheese (Tony made a mental note about that one).
"This is... incredible," Thor breathed. "And terrifying."
"Both reactions are appropriate."
Next, the God turned to Black Adam. The champion of Shazam stood proud, chin raised, divine lightning crackling across his form. He'd been empowered by gods—Egyptian deities who'd granted him strength, stamina, wisdom, and power beyond mortal ken.
But what he had was nothing compared to what the God offered.
When the God touched Black Adam's chest, directly over the lightning bolt emblem, the champion's entire body lit up like a supernova. His lightning—already capable of devastating entire armies—transformed. It became sentient.
The electricity didn't just respond to his commands; it anticipated them. It flowed not just through physical space but through probability space, striking not where enemies were but where they would be, threading through alternate timelines to find the path of maximum devastation.
Black Adam opened his eyes, and they glowed with newfound understanding. "The power of the gods... was merely the beginning."
"Correct. Now your lightning answers not just to your will, but to your thoughts, your instincts, your very essence. It has become part of your consciousness."
The lightning danced around Black Adam like trained serpents, creating patterns in the air—fractals within fractals, mathematical expressions of pure destructive force made beautiful.
Then the God approached Loki, and the trickster actually looked nervous for the first time in centuries.
"Is this going to hurt?" Loki asked, trying to maintain his casual demeanor.
"Pain is... relative."
"That's not reassuring."
The God's touch on Loki's forehead was gentle, almost tender. But the effect was anything but.
Loki's probability manipulation—his ability to make unlikely things happen, to stack the deck in his favor, to ensure that coincidences worked in his benefit—suddenly expanded exponentially. He could now see not just likely outcomes, but all outcomes, branching paths of possibility spreading before him like an infinite tree.
But more than that, his powers now interfaced directly with Alien X's reality-warping abilities. Where Loki could manipulate probability, and Alien X could reshape reality, together they created something new: the ability to make the impossible possible.
Loki staggered, clutching his head. "I can see... everything. Every choice, every consequence, every branching path..."
"And now you can choose which path becomes real. Make impossible odds become certainties."
"That's... that's terrifying."
"Yes."
Finally, the God turned to Tony Stark. Iron Man stood his ground, repulsors charged and ready, but his mind was racing. He'd analyzed what the God had done to the others, run calculations, tried to predict what might happen to him.
He was completely wrong.
The God's hand—not physical, yet somehow more real than any physical touch—brushed against Tony's arc reactor. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then Tony's consciousness exploded.
He could suddenly perceive everything. Every particle in the universe, every energy field, every gravitational wave, every quantum fluctuation. Electromagnetic radiation painted the cosmos in colors his eyes had never been equipped to see. He watched subatomic particles pop in and out of existence, virtual particles borrowing energy from the vacuum and paying it back in femtoseconds.
Spacetime itself became visible—a fabric that could be bent, twisted, manipulated. Probability waves collapsed and uncollapsed before his eyes. He saw the fundamental forces—gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces—not as separate things but as aspects of a single unified field.
"Holy shit," Tony whispered, his voice filled with genuine awe. "JARVIS, are you—"
"Sir, I am detecting approximately infinite new sensor readings. My processing capacity has somehow increased by several orders of magnitude. I am... uncertain how this is possible."
"We're beyond possible now, buddy."
The God's voice resonated with something that might have been pride:
"You see now, Stark. You perceive the universe as it truly is—not discrete objects moving through space, but patterns of energy and matter dancing through spacetime. You see the code beneath reality."
Tony flexed his gauntleted fingers, watching energy fields respond to his thoughts. "This is... this is better than any upgrade I've ever installed."
"You are no longer merely a genius, Tony Stark. You are an engineer of reality itself."
"Now," the God continued, addressing all of them, "think. Adapt. Innovate. You will fight not merely with strength or power, but with understanding. Show me what mortal ingenuity combined with cosmic power can achieve."
Tony grinned inside his helmet. "Genius? Check. God-tier power upgrade? Check. Let's break some reality, shall we?"
Thor spun Mjolnir, dimensional rifts sparking along its arc. "For Asgard and... well, everywhere else too, I suppose!"
Loki's eyes glowed with probability calculations. "This is going to be fun."
Black Adam's lightning formed a crown around his head. "Let them come."
The God gestured, and the arena changed.