Chapter 6 – The Leviathan Awakens
The night pulsed like a heartbeat.
From high above, Manhattan looked calm — lights glimmering, taxis humming, sirens sighing. But from between the folds of reality, the city screamed.
King Toxic stood on a rooftop, his boots anchored in concrete that wasn't entirely solid anymore. Space rippled around him in lazy waves, bending the skyline like heat mirage.
> "Note to self," he muttered. "Stop folding space near skyscrapers. People get nervous when their offices start winking out of existence."
He flicked his wrist, and the distortion steadied.
That's when he felt it — a pulse deep below the streets. Slow, heavy, hungry.
He smirked. "Oh, look. Manhattan's got heartburn."
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1. The Thing Beneath
In the depths below Grand Central, tunnels groaned. Blue veins of energy crawled across the walls like living lightning. And then — a sound. Not a roar, not quite. More like reality inhaling.
A subway worker's flashlight blinked out. He turned to run.
He didn't make it three steps before space itself folded inward, swallowing him into the floor.
Above, King Toxic winced as the pulse spiked.
> "Somewhere down there, a guy just got deleted. Great. Add that to my karma tab."
He dropped from the roof — but not by jumping. The world around him inverted, folding into itself until the skyline was upside down and he was falling sideways through dimensions.
He landed in the subway tunnel without a sound.
The air smelled of ozone and saltwater.
> "Smells like a bad aquarium," he muttered. "Either Hydra's cooking calamari, or something cosmic's hatching."
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2. The Voice in the Static
His comm crackled — a voice, female, crisp.
> "Malik Toxen."
He froze. No one had called him that in months.
> "Who is this?"
"Someone who remembers the world before you broke it."
The lights flickered, and for a split second, he saw her reflection in the glass: Nyah.
Her voice was soft, but it glitched — like data corruption in a dream.
> "You left us," she said.
"I didn't mean—"
"The universe doesn't care about meaning, Malik. It cares about balance."
The reflection twisted — her eyes glowing blue, her body dissolving into static.
King Toxic sighed. "Either my guilt's got a sense of humor, or Hydra's upgraded to psychological warfare."
He clenched his fist, and the illusion shattered like glass.
---
3. The Leviathan Stirs
From the crater floor beneath the tunnel, something rose.
A mass of liquid light and shadow — part machine, part organism. Dozens of eyes blinked open, glowing with fractured Tesseract energy.
King Toxic stared. "Well. That's definitely not OSHA-approved."
The creature pulsed, and the tunnel twisted around it. Whole sections of steel curled like paper. Its voice came not from a mouth, but from everywhere.
> "YOU ARE THE SOURCE."
He tilted his head. "You say that like it's my fault. Which, technically, it might be."
The Leviathan struck — a whip of blue energy slicing through space. Toxic folded sideways, reappearing behind it.
> "Sorry, big guy. You'll need more tentacles than that."
He slammed his palm against the creature's flank. Space folded inward — collapsing the attack into a single point of light that detonated silently. When the glow faded, the Leviathan was still there, reforming.
> "Oh come on," he groaned. "You cosmic types never stay dead."
---
4. The Cosmic Joke
His communicator buzzed again — this time, the Ancient One's calm voice.
> "The Leviathan feeds on what you left behind," she said. "Your connection to the fractured Stone keeps it alive."
> "Great. I'm basically its emotional support human."
"You cannot destroy it. You must sever your bond."
"You mean stop being awesome?"
"I mean stop existing as what you've become."
He paused. "Yeah, that's not gonna make my to-do list."
---
5. The Fold Within
The Leviathan lunged again, swallowing the tunnel in blue fire.
King Toxic dove straight into the blast — folding space around himself until he was standing inside the creature's core.
Everything was light and sound and memory.
He saw glimpses — Nyah's laugh, Aisha's drawings, his mother's smile — all woven into the energy that powered this thing. His past was literally the monster's fuel.
> "You eat feelings. Cute," he whispered. "Let's see if you can digest regret."
He opened his hands, and reality inverted. Every drop of pain, guilt, and grief he'd been carrying burst outward in a storm of warped geometry.
The Leviathan screamed, its form unraveling like ribbons in a hurricane.
When it was over, the tunnel was silent again — scorched, empty, smoking.
King Toxic stood at the center, glowing faintly.
> "I either just saved Manhattan," he muttered, "or gave it space cancer. Fifty-fifty odds."
---
6. The Quiet After
He emerged from the subway into early morning fog. Cars honked in the distance. Normalcy trying to pretend it existed.
He sat on a bench, dripping rain and dimensional residue.
A woman passing by frowned. "You okay, sir?"
He grinned tiredly. "Ma'am, I just argued with a cosmic sea monster made of my trauma. I'll take a nap and call it even."
She blinked. "...Okay then."
He winked. "Don't worry. I only fold space on weekdays."
---
7. Elsewhere
Deep beneath S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, a hologram replayed the event — blue tendrils rising, collapsing, reforming. The Leviathan's death wasn't clean. Something survived.
Maria Hill turned to her team. "He destroyed it?"
A technician swallowed. "No, ma'am. He merged with it."
Hill paled. "God help us."
In the corner, the Ancient One's astral projection watched silently.
> "Not God," she murmured. "The Riftwalker."