The year is now 2009. The technological and economic shockwaves caused by Frontier Industries had stabilized into a new, uneasy global status quo. The world was forced to adopt Anatoly's revolutionary technology—not through military conquest, but through sheer necessity. Every major economy relied on the Russian-made quantum servers, the global cure vials, and the impossibly efficient energy solutions pioneered by Vegapunk under Anatoly's direction.
Anatoly, now twenty, officially assumed the title of Tsarevich and began a quiet campaign of consolidating all remaining, disparate Russian power centers under his direct control. He rarely left the shielded compound of the Kremlin, viewing his surroundings through vast, interactive screens developed by Bulma. He didn't need to be physically present; his intellect and network were everywhere.
Across the Atlantic, deep beneath the surface of the Potomac, Nick Fury, now the newly appointed Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., slammed a fist onto the holographic table in his strategy room.
"The Ghost of December," he growled, the nickname he'd given Prince Anatoly. "We have been trying to get a viable agent inside Frontier Industries for two years. We've used deep-cover operatives, social engineering, even tried to replicate their hardware to find a backdoor. Every single agent vanishes, is neutralized, or simply quits the mission citing 'unbearable psychological pressure'—which is code for Makima making them think their own socks are trying to kill them."
Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, sat opposite him, her expression stony. She had been their most promising attempt, using her deep Russian roots and impeccable cover. She had managed to secure a low-level analyst position in the St. Petersburg offices before her mission abruptly ended.
"Director, it's not the tech, it's the loyalty," Natasha stated, her voice low and tense. "They are fanatics, but unlike any fanaticism I've encountered. It's not ideological; it's personal. Every single person I interacted with, from the janitor to the department head—they view Prince Anatoly not as a sovereign, but as… a god. Or a father who single-handedly saved the world from disease."
"And the women?" Fury asked, referring to the known 'inner circle' of the Tsarevich—the generals, scientists, and high-ranking officials who were almost exclusively women of their generation.
"Esdeath. She runs Imperial Security. She's cold, brilliant, and utterly ruthless. They call her 'The Ice Empress.' The few documented border skirmishes we've seen—where smugglers tried to bypass the tech tariffs—she handled personally. Satellite imaging caught a small battalion frozen solid in a matter of seconds. No heavy weaponry, just… cold." Natasha shuddered slightly, a rare display of unease. "And Yor Forger, the Royal Guard Commander. She moves like smoke. We lost three highly trained black ops teams trying to extract a single Frontier Industries engineer; we found their gear, but no bodies, only precision puncture wounds that would baffle a medical examiner."
Fury rubbed his temples. "We can't touch him. We can't replicate his tech. And we can't outsmart his security. Russia is a black hole of intelligence, surrounded by women who could take on the entire Avengers Initiative single-handedly."
"They are loyal to him, Fury," Natasha stressed. "Not to Russia, not to the crown, but to Anatoly. If he disappeared, the entire infrastructure would collapse into a civil war between these demigods. That is our only weakness—the single point of failure."
While the world obsessed over his cures and phones, Anatoly was focused on his passion: Multiversal exploration and power refinement. In a shielded laboratory deep beneath the Ural Mountains, far from the prying eyes of even his closest advisors, he was working on Project Mjølnir.
He stood before a swirling energy matrix, composed entirely of manipulated Omni-Energy. His consciousness, boosted by the Rick-level intellect, was constantly running billions of computations—predicting and overriding every variable in the known physical constants.
"The fifth dimension is a chaotic nexus, but my singularity status acts as an anchor," he thought, observing the faint, almost invisible fluctuations in the energy field.
He raised his hand. The energy coalesced, forming a small, perfect sphere of pure, contained kinetic force. It was energy in its absolute, most efficient state—a weapon that could pierce the fabric of reality, a limitless power source, or a means to traverse vast cosmic distances.
He wasn't merely studying physics; he was writing new laws.
Suddenly, a notification flashed across his mental dashboard—a silent alarm triggered by the quantum processors he had installed in orbit.
ALERT: TEMPORAL-SPATIAL ANOMALY DETECTED. SECTOR: NEW MEXICO, USA. ENERGY SIGNATURE: UNKNOWN, PRIMARY SOURCE HIGHLY CONCENTRATED GAMMA RADIATION.
Anatoly smiled, a faint, predatory curve of his lips. He knew the coordinates. It was July 2011, and the events of the MCU were proceeding, despite his technological interference. His advanced timing had merely shifted the starting line.
"Time for a house call," he murmured.
He didn't use any visible device. He simply willed it. His soul-based Teleportation ability activated. With a silent, undetectable ripple in the air, Anatoly, Tsarevich of All Russias, the Absolute Existence and Singular Anchor of the Multiverse, vanished from the deepest cavern in the Urals, intending to pop into the dusty, remote desert of New Mexico, precisely where a certain powerful hammer had recently landed.
His personal security council, Esdeath, Yor, and Makima, stationed in the control room five levels above him, didn't even register a tremor. He was gone, and the world was utterly unaware that its most powerful man had just taken a quick vacation to observe a Norse god in distress.