(May 2012)
The chaos unfolding in Manhattan was beautiful to Lucian. It was a perfect, uncontrolled thermodynamic event—a massive release of energy that provided the optimal cover for theft.
Lucian Rothschild was perched on the spire of the Chrysler Building, a vantage point that offered a perfect view of Stark Tower and the wormhole screaming open above it. He wasn't on the roof; he was integrated into the building's metallic skin, invisible to the eye and radar.
He was wearing the Mark-Sigma Nanotech Suit, now fully integrated with the Promethium-Beta (psychic shielding), the Crystalline Shards (power core stabilization), and the Pym-Stark protocols (liquid assembly).
The suit was a dark, matte obsidian, the liquid metal flexing seamlessly over his form. It wasn't bulky like Iron Man's armor; it was sleek, functional, and terrifyingly efficient. The Promethium lining around his head instantly negated the distant, low-level psychic emanations from Loki's scepter—a mild nuisance that would have instantly incapacitated a lesser mind.
"MORPHEUS," Lucian transmitted internally, his voice synthesized to a low, precise frequency only he could hear. "How are the physiological stabilizers holding up against the Promethium exposure?"
// MORPHEUS Report: Physiological Stabilization at 99.8%. Blood pressure nominal. Cellular degradation offset by Aether-Alpha micro-repair nanites. The discomfort of Multiversal travel is now mitigated to the level of mild indigestion, Mr. Rothschild. //
"Excellent. Let the amateurs play their game." Lucian watched Iron Man streak past, followed by Thor's hammer. "The current situation is too messy for a clean retrieval. We will wait for a target of opportunity—a fully intact, non-atmospheric Leviathan."
Below him, the battle raged. The Avengers were focusing on the immediate threat, blowing up Chitauri craft in spectacular fashion.
Lucian didn't care about the Chitauri foot soldiers. He needed the Leviathans. These creatures were part biological, part technological, armored with an alloy that, while inferior to the Destroyer's Uru, was still leagues beyond Earth tech.
He calculated the trajectory of the third Leviathan to emerge from the portal. It was veering south, away from Stark Tower and toward the relatively dense skyscrapers of the Financial District—a perfect isolated target.
Lucian launched himself. He didn't use rockets; the Mark-Sigma suit utilized the Crystalline Shard power core to generate a localized gravimetric field drive, allowing him to simply fall sideways through the air at impossible speeds.
He intercepted the Leviathan near a spire, landing silently on its armored hide. The surface felt like gritty, cold ceramic.
"MORPHEUS, initiating Phase-I Acquisition Protocol. Deploying containment field projectors. Maintain absolute acoustic and visual stealth. We are not here to be heroes."
Lucian plunged his armored fingers into the Leviathan's hide. The Nanotech suit instantly reconfigured his fingertips into plasma cutters, shearing through the Chitauri alloy like butter.
He dug into the creature's spinal column, deploying six Chronos Containment Field (CCF) Projectors. These devices were Lucian's ultimate containment tool—miniaturized, temporary pocket dimension generators derived from his early work on the QDC.
The CCF Projectors activated simultaneously, creating a localized, stable temporal bubble around the massive creature. To anyone watching, the Leviathan would simply vanish from reality.
In the middle of the battle, Tony Stark zipped past the Financial District, searching for targets. He glanced down and saw the third Leviathan—the one heading for Wall Street—just... stop.
It didn't crash; it didn't explode. It simply faded into a shimmering heat haze and then ceased to exist.
"Jarvis, run diagnostics! Did the big worm just hit a phase shift? Where did that thing go?" Tony yelled over his comms.
"Sir, all sensor data indicates the object ceased to occupy three-dimensional space. There is no trace of kinetic energy transfer or residue. It is a zero-point removal event," JARVIS responded, baffled.
Tony frowned. That was impossible. Only two people on Earth were capable of that kind of tech—himself and maybe Banner, but neither of them had that kind of scale. Wait. The message...
The world is too small for just one genius.
Tony's mind flashed back to the cryptic message from years ago. He had traced it back to an encrypted quantum array that led to a dead end in the Atlantic. He realized with a cold shock that he wasn't alone in the game anymore.
Lucian watched Tony's confused flyby from his hidden position.
"Nice work, Stark. Keep smashing the small stuff. I've got the blueprints."
He tapped the control on his wrist. A pulse of energy fired from the QDC, collapsing the temporary CCF pocket dimension.
The now-captured Leviathan didn't rematerialize in Manhattan. Instead, it reappeared in a massive, custom-built containment bay deep within The Citadel, already sealed, flooded with a paralyzing bio-gas, and ready for dissection.
Lucian had successfully stolen one of Thanos's premier war assets, mid-battle, without anyone seeing him or even realizing the theft had occurred.
His work in New York was not done. The true prize was the Tesseract's energy signature.
Lucian flew to the top of Stark Tower. The Avengers had just defeated Loki. The Tesseract was sealed in its secure briefcase, ready to be handed off to S.H.I.E.L.D.
Lucian didn't need to steal the Tesseract. That was too hot, too traceable, and would lead to direct war with Asgard and S.H.I.E.L.D. He just needed the data.
He landed silently on the side of the tower, reconfiguring the Nanotech suit's hand into a fine, needle-like probe composed of Promethium-Beta. He extended the probe toward the briefcase, inserting the tip into the seal.
The probe acted as a quantum siphon, drawing only a fraction of a second of the Tesseract's pure, residual spatial energy signature directly into MORPHEUS.
// MORPHEUS Report: Data Acquisition Complete. Tesseract signature analyzed. Successfully modeled the fundamental mechanics of space manipulation. We now possess the theoretical framework for synthesizing a stable, non-stone-based Spatial Conduit Generator. //
Lucian withdrew the probe. The briefcase was untouched.
His body felt the strain—not the pathetic weakness of the past weeks he felt, but the calculated cost of pushing his technology to its limit. His eyes, visible through the suit's helmet, simply narrowed in concentration. Resource expenditure within acceptable parameters.
Lucian flew away from Manhattan, leaving the cleanup to the heroes.
Back in The Citadel, he walked into the containment bay where the Leviathan lay still, submerged in the clear, preserving gas. He removed his helmet. The air here was perfectly filtered.
Elena stood beside the massive creature, her face a mixture of awe and horror.
"You stole a monster," she breathed. "From the middle of a war zone."
"I didn't steal a monster, Elena," Lucian corrected, walking toward the creature's colossal head, his eyes shining with cold excitement. "I acquired the textbook. We now have a living, fully intact alien war machine to reverse-engineer. Their power source, their armor, their biology… it's all here. Stark is playing checkers with conventional warfare. I'm playing chess with cosmic materials."
He placed his hand on the Leviathan's rough plating, feeling the residual charge.
"MORPHEUS, initiate the dissection protocol. Prioritize the core power source and the Chitauri brain interface. And, using the Tesseract data, begin modeling the Spatial Conduit Generator. I don't just want to travel the multiverse. I want to control where I go, and how much reality I can carry with me."
He was not pathetic. He was the apex predator of the technological world. The Avengers saved Earth. Lucian Rothschild just used their battle as a glorified flea market to stock his arsenal.
The next enemy was not a megalomaniac with a magic spear. It was a purple alien with an Infinity Gauntlet, and Lucian was already building the tools necessary to synthesize the very power Thanos craved.