"Hey, Karl, what just happened? The warship shook, and then the four of them disappeared. Did someone attack us?"
Tony looked at Karl curiously when he returned with Ganata and the others.
The moment he mentioned an enemy, however, his expression became eager.
Apparently, he wanted an excuse to test his new armor.
"Someone did come looking for trouble."
Karl glanced at him.
"They were from an organization called the Time Variance Authority."
"They've already been dealt with."
Karl casually raised the strange baton in his hand.
"Their technology is based heavily on temporal manipulation."
Then he suddenly remembered Loki's first encounter with the TVA.
A mischievous idea immediately appeared in his mind.
"Tony, want to experience it?"
"What—"
Bang!
Before Tony could finish speaking, Karl struck him with the Time Stick.
His movements instantly slowed to a fraction of their normal speed.
Even his expression changed in exaggerated slow motion.
A few seconds later, the temporal effect disappeared.
Tony stumbled forward and immediately covered his cheek, staring at Karl in disbelief.
Howard and May also looked surprised.
Tony had just moved as though someone had reduced the playback speed of a video.
"Well?"
Karl burst out laughing.
"Interesting experience with time, isn't it?"
Tony finally realized Karl had deliberately used him as a test subject.
"You bastard!"
"I'll fight you to the death!"
Then Tony's eyes fell upon the Time Stick.
His expression changed instantly.
"Unless you let me study that thing for a few days."
"In that case, being the merciful person I am, I might forgive you."
Maria stared at him speechlessly.
Howard, however, looked extremely interested in the device as well.
Karl shook his head.
"Here."
The Time Stick floated toward Tony.
"Be careful with it."
"Temporal technology isn't something you should dismantle blindly."
"Have Vastness and JARVIS assist you. Otherwise, if something goes wrong, you might end up throwing yourself into another century."
"Yeah, yeah. No problem."
Tony barely listened.
The moment the Time Stick entered his hand, he began examining it from every angle.
"Ahem."
"I suddenly remembered something extremely important."
"I'll be leaving now."
Without waiting for anyone to answer, Tony turned and quickly disappeared down the corridor.
Everyone knew exactly what he intended to do.
Howard stared after him.
Then his expression changed.
"Ahem."
"I also remembered something important."
"Have fun."
He immediately chased after Tony.
If he arrived even a few minutes late, Tony might already have dismantled the entire device.
Karl could only shake his head.
"Vastness."
"Analyze these two Time Sticks and three TemPads."
He placed the remaining TVA equipment on the table.
[Understood, Sir.]
Karl wanted to know whether Vastness could reverse-engineer their temporal technology.
If they could manufacture their own versions, the equipment might be useful for May, Raven, Helen Cho, and the others.
More importantly, the TemPads contained temporal coordinates and pathways associated with the TVA.
That created another possibility.
Karl had already begun wondering whether he should infiltrate the TVA itself.
From what he remembered, there were plenty of interesting things there.
In the MCU's TVA, confiscated Infinity Stones had even been treated like useless paperweights because their powers didn't function within TVA headquarters.
But if Karl could remove those Stones and bring them back into a universe where they worked...
The situation might be completely different.
Even duplicate Stones could potentially become valuable research materials for Vastness, the warships, and everyone else.
The question was how to get inside without being discovered.
Karl didn't believe the TVA headquarters would be undefended.
Even if its ordinary Hunters weren't particularly powerful, an organization capable of monitoring timelines across reality couldn't possibly rely only on them.
And there was another problem.
The Time-Keepers.
Karl carefully separated what he remembered from different continuities.
In the comics, the Time-Keepers—Ast, Vorth, and Zanth—were genuine temporal beings created by He Who Remains, the TVA's final director at the end of time. They weren't machines.
The robotic Time-Keepers belonged to the MCU TVA, where they had been manufactured as false figureheads hiding the existence of He Who Remains.
That distinction mattered.
Because Karl still didn't know exactly which version of the TVA he was dealing with.
If it was a fusion of comic and cinematic continuities, the danger would increase dramatically.
And behind the MCU version existed an even more troublesome figure.
He Who Remains.
A variant connected to Kang the Conqueror.
Karl's expression became serious.
Nathaniel Richards—the man who would become Kang—originated from the alternate reality designated Earth-6311.
He was born in its 31st century, an era whose technological development far exceeded that of modern Earth.
His ancestry was connected to the Richards family line, while Victor von Doom was only considered a possible ancestor.
Through time travel, Nathaniel eventually assumed numerous identities.
Rama-Tut.
The Scarlet Centurion.
Kang the Conqueror.
Immortus.
And countless divergent counterparts created through his own temporal journeys.
In the MCU continuity Karl remembered, a variant later known as He Who Remains had discovered the existence of parallel universes.
At first, his counterparts communicated and exchanged knowledge peacefully.
Then some variants began trying to conquer other realities.
That conflict escalated into the Multiversal War.
He Who Remains eventually discovered Alioth, weaponized the creature's ability to consume time and space, ended the war, isolated his preferred timeline, and established the TVA to prevent new branches from creating more dangerous variants.
That version alone was troublesome enough.
But comic-book Kang was arguably even more difficult to deal with.
Kang himself possessed no natural divine power.
His greatest weapons were intelligence, technology, and mastery of temporal travel.
But that was exactly what made him dangerous.
He could retreat into another era.
Attack from the past.
Prepare weapons in the future.
Or create divergent versions of himself simply through repeated time travel.
Marvel's history was already filled with alternate Kangs and divergent incarnations produced by his movements through the timestream.
Even killing one Kang didn't necessarily solve anything.
It might only eliminate the Kang standing in front of you.
Another divergent version could already exist elsewhere in time.
That was what Karl found troublesome.
He wasn't certain whether the Kang behind this TVA belonged primarily to the MCU timeline, the comics timeline, or some distorted combination of both.
And against an enemy whose greatest weapon was time itself, simply possessing greater destructive power wasn't necessarily enough.
If Karl killed Kang at one point in history—
there could still be another Kang waiting somewhere else along the timestream.
...
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