Prologue
The rain had been falling for three days straight.
New York's sky looked bruised, swollen with thunder that never came, as if even the heavens were holding their breath. Malik Toxen leaned against the bus-stop glass, a half-finished coffee cooling in his hand. His reflection stared back at him — tired eyes, a mind that never rested, and red-tinted locks tied back in a messy knot.
"Another day, another dollar for the empire of bad decisions," he muttered.
The coffee machine inside his lab had been broken all week, so he'd picked up a cheap one from a bodega that promised 'Real Colombian Flavor'. It tasted like battery acid mixed with regret. He smirked anyway. "Perfect. Matches the job."
---
1. The Calm
Malik worked for Nexatek Industries, a so-called clean-energy startup funded by government grants. On paper they wanted to power cities with harmless zero-point radiation.
Off the record, their investors wore too many black suits and asked too few safety questions.
In the break room, he scrolled through a picture on his phone: his mother grinning beside a cake shaped like Saturn; his kid sister Aisha flashing a peace sign; his girlfriend Nyah hiding behind frosting. His orbit, he called them. Everything that kept him human.
He texted: "Late again. Save me leftovers."
Nyah replied instantly: "We will. Don't blow up the lab, genius."
He chuckled. "Can't promise anything."
---
2. The Project
That evening the team gathered around a containment pod glowing faintly blue. Inside pulsed something like liquid light — a fragment of the Space Gem, or at least that's what their classified brief hinted at.
"Today," said Dr. Krieger, their supervisor, "we bring humanity one step closer to infinite energy."
Malik whispered to his colleague: "Or infinite lawsuits."
The other tech snorted. "Relax. Hydra — I mean — the Department of Energy — has us covered."
Everyone laughed nervously. Malik didn't. The funding line had always felt… wrong. Too many encrypted memos, too many agents who smiled without blinking.
Still, he adjusted the stabilizer coil. "Okay, baby. Don't melt reality on my shift."
The reactor hummed. Blue lines of energy danced up the walls. The room smelled of ozone and fresh rain — that strange, clean scent space always seemed to carry when it slipped into Earth.
Krieger grinned. "Containment at ninety-five percent. See? Perfectly —"
The alarms cut him off.
Containment dropped to forty.
Malik cursed. "Perfectly doomed, you mean."
---
3. The Storm Breaks
On the monitors, a spike of unknown origin hit the reactor. The power grid flickered, every bulb exploding into sparks. A hole of pure light tore through the chamber wall like silk.
Malik felt the pull — space itself inhaling.
"Emergency shut down!" someone screamed.
But it was too late.
A surge of energy burst outward, folding metal, glass, and air into one shining whirlpool. Malik dove for the console, slamming his palm against the manual override. He knew it wouldn't work — but his family was waiting at home; he couldn't die in an unpaid internship.
He looked up just in time to see them — three silhouettes on the observation deck. Not Hydra. Not S.H.I.E.L.D. Outsiders. A man, a woman, and something tall in a black hood. They were smiling.
Then everything went white.
---
4. The Fall
He awoke in silence.
The lab was gone — or rather, folded in on itself. The ceiling curved inward like a crushed can, frozen mid-implosion. The floor shimmered like liquid mirror.
Malik floated slightly above it. Every breath tasted metallic.
"Okay," he rasped. "If this is heaven, somebody messed up the décor."
He tried to move and realized his body glowed faint blue. Veins of light pulsed under his skin. A faint hum echoed behind his heartbeat.
Then came the memory — Nyah, Aisha, Mom — waiting at home. The explosion… had it reached the city?
He stumbled toward the exit — or what remained of one — each step leaving ripples in space. When he brushed the wall, it bent like fabric, revealing other versions of the lab — clean, burning, empty. Infinite reflections collapsing into each other.
"Cool," he said hoarsely. "I broke physics."
---
5. The Ashes
He emerged onto the street above. The building was gone, replaced by a crater glowing faintly blue. Sirens wailed in the distance. Rain hissed against the ruins, turning to steam when it hit the glowing shards.
And there — on the sidewalk — a small silver bracelet. Aisha's.
He picked it up, fingers trembling. The metal was warm. His knees buckled. For a long time he didn't move. The only sound was the hiss of rain and the static hum in his chest.
He looked up at the sky and laughed — a broken, hollow sound. "Congratulations, universe. You win. Again."
Lightning cracked above him, illuminating the devastation. He felt tears burn hot, but when they fell, they glowed blue before vanishing mid-air.
"Guess even my grief refuses to behave," he muttered.
---
6. The Awakening
Something stirred inside him — a pressure, like an expanding star. The air around him twisted, bending light. His reflection in a puddle split into a dozen copies.
Instinctively he reached outward, and the space in front of him folded like paper. A beam of faint light shot upward, creating a tiny portal that showed… his old apartment. Mom's couch. Nyah's shoes by the door. Aisha's drawings on the wall. All untouched — for now.
Then the vision collapsed. The street snapped back into rain and rubble.
He gasped. "Okay, note to self — I can break the universe and stalk my own living room. Great."
The sarcasm steadied him. Without it, he would have screamed.
He looked at his hands. "If space wants to play games, fine. I'll learn the rules."
---
7. Echoes
Hours later, the first responders arrived. They found no survivors — just strange readings that made their compasses spin.
From the shadows, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in black vans deployed sensors.
"Director Hill," one radioed. "We've got a live anomaly. Energy signature matches the Tesseract but fragmented."
"Retrieve whatever's left," Hill ordered. "And find the source."
Behind her, another voice crackled — a hidden channel, encrypted. "Asset T-0 secured?"
"Negative, sir. Subject is mobile."
A pause. "Then he's learning."
---
8. Malik's Flight
Malik wandered aimlessly through the outskirts of the city until dawn. His clothes were singed, his body still humming with unstable power.
He collapsed beneath a bridge, shivering despite the heat radiating from his skin. A stray cat padded near, sniffing the air, then curled against him.
"Hey there," he whispered. "Don't get too close. I'm basically a microwave right now."
The cat purred anyway.
He sighed, staring at the faint blue glow on his fingertips. "Guess it's just you and me, furball. Don't suppose you know how to reverse quantum implosions?"
The cat meowed.
"Yeah, me neither."
For a while, silence again — just the rain and the steady hum of a man who no longer fit in reality.
---
9. Visions
As the sun rose, he dreamt — or maybe drifted. He saw his mother smiling in endless light, Aisha chasing stars, Nyah whispering, "Keep moving."
He woke with tears on his face and a faint new sense — a map unfolding in his mind. Energy lines criss-crossing the city, each one pulsing in rhythm with the fragment inside him. Somewhere out there, others were experimenting with the same corrupted technology.
"Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D., mystery cult… whoever you are," he murmured, "you took everything from me. So I'm taking something back."
He flexed his hand, and a sphere of warped light hovered above his palm. Space itself obeyed.
Then, faintly, he smiled — a tired, dangerous smile. "Guess King Toxen's open for business."
---
10. Observation
On a nearby rooftop, the tall figure in the black hood watched through a scope that wasn't quite technological. The stranger spoke into a comm.
"Subject T-0 survived the reactor event. The fusion succeeded."
A voice replied, distorted. "Excellent. Let him run. Pain makes the best fuel."
The figure closed the comm and turned away, disappearing into a ripple of shadow.
---
11. Hope
That night, Malik stood by the river where the city lights shimmered like broken stars. The bracelet hung from his neck on a piece of wire.
He whispered to the water, "I'll find out who did this. I'll fix what I broke. Maybe then the stars will stop screaming."
A faint breeze swirled around him. The raindrops froze mid-fall, suspended for a heartbeat, as if the universe itself paused to listen.
He laughed softly. "You see that, Aisha? Your brother's a cosmic glitch."
Then he straightened, pulling his coat tighter. "And glitches… rewrite code."
He stepped forward, folding space around him. The night swallowed the glow, leaving only ripples on the river.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Report
> File: Subject T-0 (Malik Toxen)
Status: Missing
Energy Source: Corrupted Space Gem fragment
Threat Level: Unclassified – escalating
Note: Subject exhibits adaptive spatial control, rapid healing, and high emotional volatility. Recommend containment or recruitment.
At the bottom of the file, someone had handwritten a single line:
> He survived the impossible. That makes him inevitable.