Power Delivered to the Door

The End of Time.

There was no past, no future. It was, in the literal sense, the graveyard of all things.

Abandoned timelines that had been clipped away lay scattered through the endless void like dead snakes, giving off a faint, despairing light. Histories that had never happened, futures that would never exist, possibilities that had been erased—all of them slowly rotted here.

Silver light lit up in the void.

Ian's figure slowly emerged.

He stepped onto the emptiness and looked down at his right hand.

The purple light in his palm was still pulsing violently, and Zarathos's aura was close at hand. He could feel that being somewhere amid these ruins.

It was devouring, growing, waiting.

"Does this count as revisiting an old haunt?"

Ian raised his head and looked around.

Everywhere was trash from timelines. Shattered Infinity Stones lay scattered across the ground, their luster gone. Ian was just about to fly off and search when a sudden heat came from the palm of his right hand.

That heat was not the pulse of Zarathos's mark, but another kind, one more familiar, one he had not felt in a very long time—then a stream of light shot out of his palm and landed beside him.

The light faded.

A girl stood at his side.

She looked about sixteen or seventeen, wearing a simple purple dress, her long purple hair drifting gently in the void. Her face was small, her eyes large, and right now she was gazing into the distant darkness, her expression far too solemn for someone her age. In those eyes, the light of the ruins was reflected.

The shadow of death was reflected.

A weariness that only someone who had lived through countless years could understand was reflected.

Ian looked down at her.

He was