Chapter 9: The Three-Month Ghost
The silence of the French woods was a stark contrast to the screaming void Arthur had just escaped. He looked at his hands, then at his staff—the Tesseract shard embedded in the head pulsed with a rhythmic, bioluminescent heartbeat.
"Three months?" Arthur's voice was hoarse, the temporal displacement making his throat feel like it was filled with glass.
"Schloss Klessheim went up in a blue localized supernova," Bucky said, stepping forward, his eyes wary but relieved. He looked different—leaner, harder. The trauma of the experimentation had been replaced by the cold focus of a seasoned sniper. "Steve wouldn't stop looking. We stayed in that sector for three weeks until Colonel Phillips ordered us out."
Steve reached out, grabbing Arthur's shoulder as if to anchor him to the timeline. "We mourned you, Arthur. We had a service."
[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ]
World State Updated.
Current Date: November 1944.
Status: The Howling Commandos are mid-campaign in the Belgian-French border.
Note: Your 'death' accelerated Steve's aggression against Hydra. The war is moving faster, but bloodier.
The Shadow of the Void
Arthur tried to stand, but his legs buckled. As he fell, he didn't hit the ground. For a split second, the air beneath him folded. He hovered an inch above the dirt, a ripple of blue space-time acting as a cushion before he finally landed.
[ SKILL UNLOCKED: SPATIAL ANCHOR (RANK E) ]
Passive: You are no longer fully bound by traditional physics. Your 'weight' is a suggestion.
"What was that?" Bucky asked, his rifle tightening in his grip. "You've got the same glow Schmidt had. That blue... that's not Stark's tech."
"It's not tech at all, Bucky," Arthur muttered, leaning on his staff. The metal felt warm, alive. "Schmidt is gone. Vormir... he won't be coming back. But the Tesseract isn't finished with this war. And neither am I."
The New Frontline
Steve helped him up, his expression a mix of brotherly love and the heavy burden of command. "A lot has changed, Arthur. Hydra isn't hiding in bunkers anymore. They're desperate. They're using 'Valkyrie' bombers to hit civilian targets. We're leaving for the Belgian front tonight to intercept a shipment of those power cells."
Arthur looked at his System map. The 18.5% Divergence was a red stain across Europe. In the original history, the Howling Commandos were a scalpel. Now, without his tactical intervention over the last ninety days, they had become a sledgehammer—effective, but losing men at twice the rate.
"I need a briefing," Arthur said, his eyes glowing with the faint, cold light of the Archivist. "And a new suit. I think I've outgrown the 'Stark cooking'."
[ QUEST INITIATED: THE WINTER RECLAMATION ]
Objective: Re-integrate with the Howling Commandos.
Bonus Objective: Lower the Divergence rate to below 15% by saving 'expendable' platoons.
Reward: 2,000 DP & [Master-Crafted Archivist Armor] blueprints.
Author's Note
The "Time Skip" is a classic epic trope. It forces the protagonist to realize that the world has its own momentum. Now, Arthur isn't just a soldier; he's a "Ghost" with a piece of an Infinity Stone in his weapon.