After the meeting, after the excitement, after the first rush of triumph faded, I did what I always do best.
I slowed down and thought.
That alone may have saved us.
Cross‑referencing the data from the system-purchased scanners with astronomical records, ley‑line cycles, and mythological convergence patterns, I realized something unsettling.
We were early.
Not catastrophically early—but early enough that forcing the issue could cost us everything.
The alignment of the Nine Realms was approaching, yes, but not imminent. By my most conservative calculations, we had roughly a year and a half before the barriers between realms weakened enough to allow stable access to the pocket dimension housing the Reality Stone, the Aether.
Pushing too hard too soon could alert forces we were not ready to confront.
The Dark Elves.Dormant cosmic guardians.Or worse—things we didn't yet know existed.
I immediately contacted Julius and Darius through the system's secure channel.
Their responses were instant.
Julius understood the stakes immediately. He always does.Darius was already three steps ahead, asking what resources I needed.
The three of us coordinated with ruthless efficiency.
We committed a significant portion of Foundation assets to this operation—quietly, surgically, and without attracting attention. Sentinel mobilized elite security units under the guise of archaeological protection details. The Watcher spread misinformation, redirecting scholars, mystics, and would‑be prophets away from the area.
And I?
I led the operation personally.
My memory—eidetic in both my past life as Luna and my current life as Shammuramat—served me perfectly here. I remembered Thor: The Dark World scene by scene. I remembered the cave. The gravity distortions. The way Jane Foster fell through space like it had forgotten how to behave.
I knew where it would happen.
So we went there.
Northern Europe.A quiet, unremarkable stretch of land that history would barely remember—until it mattered.
We established a hidden forward base months in advance, buried deep beneath stone and reinforced with layered containment wards. Vibranium frameworks. Telekill Alloy bracing. Redundant kill‑switches. Nothing flashy. Nothing detectable.
Then we waited.
For months, nothing happened.
The scanners registered fluctuations—minor, tantalizing, but insufficient. The realms brushed against each other like ghosts passing through walls, but never fully intersected.
Impatience crept in among the D‑Class personnel.
Not in me.
I've waited longer for lesser things.
Finally, the readings spiked.
Not enough for us—but enough for experimentation.
We sent D‑Class personnel in pairs at first. Then singly. Each equipped with trackers, tethers, and emergency extraction glyphs.
Most returned confused. Disoriented. Some injured.
None reached the pocket dimension.
Until one did.
Hours passed after his insertion. Long enough that Sentinel was already preparing to write him off as lost.
Then the alarms screamed.
Reality bent.
The man stumbled out of thin air, collapsing onto the stone floor of the base.
And wrapped around him—inside him—was a slow, pulsing red energy, viscous and alive, like liquid hatred given form.
The Aether.
The Reality Stone had chosen a host.
Immediately, every system flagged danger.
The energy reacted to movement. To proximity. To intent. The man screamed—not in pain at first, but in confusion, as if the universe itself was whispering contradictory truths into his mind.
I ordered everyone back.
No heroics. No touching.
I knew exactly what the Aether did to its host.
It consumed them.
It fed on life force to manifest its power. The more it was used, the faster the host burned out. Jane Foster survived only because cosmic circumstances intervened—and because Thor was very inconveniently heroic.
We would not make that mistake.
We moved the host into a temporary containment chamber, isolated from the main base. Vibranium-lined. Inscribed with dampening runes. No observers except through layered barriers.
Then we did something brutally simple.
We forced the Aether to expend energy.
We introduced controlled stimuli. Spatial distortions. Reality stressors. Small, escalating provocations that compelled the Aether to respond—to defend its host, to reshape local physics, to assert itself.
Each manifestation drained him further.
His screams weakened. His movements slowed. His heartbeat faltered.
I felt no guilt.
This was containment.
Eventually, the inevitable happened.
The host died.
The moment his life force vanished, the Aether recoiled—surging outward in a violent red wave before collapsing in on itself, condensing into a swirling, semi‑liquid mass of impossible density.
The Reality Stone, unbound.
"Now," I said calmly.
The containment box was already prepared.
Forged from pure vibranium, layered with telekill alloy filaments and engraved with every stabilizing sigil I knew—and several I had invented. The interior was dimensionally inert, designed to deny the Stone the ability to rewrite its own prison.
We sealed it.
The Aether thrashed once.
Then went still.
Silence fell over the base.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
I stepped forward, resting my hand on the containment box—not touching it directly, not yet.
We had done it.
One of the six fundamental forces of existence was now in Foundation custody.
I exhaled slowly.
"Secure transport to Site‑01," I ordered. "Maximum secrecy. No deviations."
Julius acknowledged immediately. Darius was already rewriting the world's memory of the event.
As the base began its quiet dismantling, I allowed myself one rare, private smile.
This wasn't just an SCP.
This was proof.
Proof that the Foundation—our Foundation—could do what gods, kings, and heroes could not.
And this was only the beginning.