The Rift Alliance didn't walk out of the ruined concert hall—they materialized on the rainy street like a dysfunctional boy band with more trauma than fanbase.
Malik Toxen—Riftwalker, professional chaos engine—was first through the door, trench coat snapping like a war banner. The storm that had stalked him for hours finally calmed, hovering above the city like an obedient, electrically unstable pet.
Nyah Reyes moved beside him. Her steps produced no sound—her entire presence siphoned it. She didn't speak. She didn't need to. Her mind pressed gently against his.
Nyah (telepathic): You sure you're stable after absorbing a whole thunderstorm?
Malik smirked. "Emotionally? Absolutely not. Energetically? Feeling like a freshly charged phone."
Ezra Vance—ex-S.H.I.E.L.D., full-time pessimist—clicked the safety off his weapon and scanned the rooftops.
"You're glowing," he informed Malik. "In a bad 'FDA recall' way."
Malik tapped his cheek. "It's called skincare, Ezra. Look it up."
Aditi Rao exited last, her lab coat fluttering like she'd never emotionally processed how insane her life had become. The holographic map still hovered over her wrist.
"According to the telemetry, the first rift originated beneath Manhattan," she said calmly. "Specifically—District Substructure 47B."
Malik paused. "That sounds like a subway station."
"No," Ezra corrected. "That used to be a subway station. Now it's where S.H.I.E.L.D. dumps artifacts too cursed for storage."
Malik grinned. "Perfect. I was worried this was going to be easy."
---
1. DESCENT
The entrance to 47B lay behind a boarded-up bodega in Lower Manhattan. Ezra pried the rotting wood aside and kicked in the rusted steel hatch beneath.
Nyah pressed her fingers to her temples.
There's a pressure down there, she warned through their mental link. Like the silence after a scream.
Malik cracked his knuckles, folding space to form a luminous knife.
"Let's go meet whatever's screaming."
Aditi frowned. "You can't just—"
Too late.
He jumped.
Ezra followed, muttering, "Every friend group needs one suicidal idiot."
Nyah and Aditi exchanged looks.
Nyah sighed. "At least he's our suicidal idiot."
Then they jumped.
---
2. THE SUBWAY THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
They landed in darkness.
Not absence-of-light darkness. Shaped darkness. Like the shadows had been carved into obeying geometry.
The ruined subway tunnel stretched miles in both directions, rails curling upward like ribs of a massive skeleton. The air vibrated with a faint hum—like whispers spoken underwater.
A rift.
A massive one.
Malik felt the hairs on his neck rise. "The hell…"
The rift pulsed beneath the tunnel floor, a glowing fracture-view into someplace wrong. It wasn't a clean tear—more like something had clawed its way through from the inside.
Aditi knelt, fingers hovering over the distortion. "This isn't space folding. Someone is drilling through dimensions."
Ezra swore softly. "Like a cosmic oil rig."
"No," Nyah murmured, eyes silvering. "Like a door that's been knocked on for too long."
Malik crouched.
The space around the rift distorted into reflections—versions of himself. Dozens of Malik's staring back at him in fractured shards.
Some were scarred. Some were feral. One looked calm—with white hair and a serenity he didn't recognize.
He whispered, "What… are those?"
A voice whispered from the rift—not words. Possibilities.
Aditi's pulse spiked. "Don't engage. They're alternate-state echoes. If you sync with one too strongly, you might overwrite your own mind."
Malik swallowed.
"What happens if the rift fully opens?"
Ezra pointed his gun straight into the glowing tear.
"New York gets a roommate. Named Oblivion."
---
3. ENTER THE ARCHIVIST
A tremor shook the tunnel.
Malik threw an arm out. "Incoming!"
Space folded—malformed, unstable—and a shape emerged.
Not stepping.
Unspooling.
Like a man-shaped tapestry weaving itself from darkness and light. The figure straightened, cloak rippling like spilled ink.
His voice resonated like a library collapsing underwater.
"Malik Toxen."
Malik blinked. "Hi. Sorry. We left our appointment book upstairs."
Nyah's hand shot to her bracelet. Her voice sharpened. "Identify yourself."
The figure tilted his head. "I am the Archivist. Keeper of the First Fold. Witness of collapsed timelines."
Aditi paled. "He's not from another universe. He's from before universes."
Ezra whispered, "Did we just piss off God?"
Archivist ignored them all, gaze fixed solely on Malik.
"You are a fracture. A flaw. A deviation from probability. You were never meant to exist."
Malik smirked. "Join the club."
Archivist extended a hand—as if offering something.
"Come with me. Let me overwrite your anomaly. The multiverse will heal."
Malik stepped closer. "And what happens to this universe?"
"Erased."
Ezra raised his weapon. "Hard pass."
Archivist didn't even look. Space folded around Ezra's gun, disassembling it molecule by molecule until it fell to dust.
Ezra stared at his empty hands.
"…Rude."
Malik's voice lowered. No jokes now. No theatrics.
"You want to erase me?"
"You are a divergence," the Archivist replied. "A branching failure that threatens the root."
Malik's hands clenched.
He'd spent years being called a mistake.
But never by the fabric of space itself.
Nyah stepped between them—sound swallowing her voice and turning it into pure force.
"You don't get to rewrite him."
The Archivist's cloak rippled.
"You cannot protect him."
Nyah smiled—sharp and reckless.
"Watch me."
---
4. FIRST STRIKE
The tunnel exploded into sound and light.
Nyah unleashed a shockwave that rippled reality like shattered glass. The Archivist didn't dodge—he absorbed it.
Malik blinked. "That's my move. Hey!"
He raised both hands and pulled.
Space inverted—like a sheet yanked from under reality.
The Archivist flickered—and appeared behind Malik.
Malik froze.
"Impossible," he whispered. "I folded space."
The Archivist answered softly.
"I folded possibility."
A tendril of black fractal energy lashed out—aimed at Malik's chest.
Aditi threw herself forward, slamming a palm into Malik's back. Her wrist device overloaded, firing a plasma shield around him.
The tendril struck her instead.
Aditi flew backward, slamming into a pillar.
Ezra was at her side instantly. "Doc, hey—stay with me."
Aditi grimaced. "Tore… through my quantum anchor."
Malik felt something he wasn't used to.
Fear.
He turned back to the Archivist.
"You hurt my team."
"And the universe thanks me for it."
---
5. MALIK'S TURN
He inhaled.
Lightning crawled up his spine. Veins lit neon blue.
He cracked his knuckles.
"Hey Archivist."
The being paused.
"You ever been punched by a storm?"
Malik vanished.
No—he folded.
Space peeled back like fabric and Malik stepped through point-to-point geometry, moving faster than teleportation. Reality stuttered with every shift.
He slammed a fist into the Archivist's face.
Lightning detonated.
The being staggered.
Ezra whooped. "Yes! Hit him again until existence files a complaint!"
Archivist straightened—cracks of white light now splintering his face.
"You cannot win."
Malik spat blood. "Watch me lose creatively."
Nyah joined him, vibrations bending gravity itself. Frequency distortion wrapped her hands.
Together, they charged.
---
6. THE PRICE
Their attacks collided with the Archivist in synchronized fury.
Nyah's sonic blades tore through possibility threads.
Malik bent space around them, amplifying every strike.
For the first time, the Archivist faltered—his form destabilizing into static.
He whispered, almost to himself:
"I miscalculated."
Malik grinned. "Story of my life."
But then—space froze.
Everything froze.
Nyah mid-strike.
Ezra halfway to Aditi.
Rain suspended in midair, droplets reflecting a thousand fractal versions of the tunnel.
Only Malik could move.
Archivist placed a hand to Malik's chest.
"You were not supposed to exist," he murmured. "So I will relocate you…"
Malik's heart lurched.
"…to a universe where you never did."
The rift opened beneath his feet.
Malik fell.
Nyah screamed—silent—as the world swallowed him.
---
7. IMPOSSIBLE QUIET
Black.
Weightless.
Then—
A city skyline.
Not his.
The Avengers Tower was intact. Stark's logo gleamed bright.
Traffic moved normally. People laughed. No storms. No distortions.
No Malik.
He stood invisible, intangible, watching a world that had never known him.
A universe without him.
Nyah's voice echoed in the void, distant and breaking:
Malik… come back…
He swallowed.
Then he smiled.
Soft.
Dangerous.
"You made one mistake, Archivist."
He clenched his fist.
The rift in front of him cracked.
"You put me somewhere filled with possibility."
Space bent.
Malik stepped forward.
"And I don't disappear quietly."