Chapter Summaries

While compiling the TVA battle damage report, Gwen Stacy found data that could reveal Lynn’s secret and covertly concealed it. She destroyed the activity logs, but an Internal Affairs audit probe was triggered.

• Gwen Stacy spotted a faint beacon algorithm in the data recorded just before Server Zero lost power.
• Gwen decided not to report the anomaly and moved it into the firewall collapse report’s data loss assessment.
• Gwen opened the Liaison Office server’s underlying log interface and began physically destroying the records of her changes.
• An Internal Affairs Inspection Office audit probe disguised as a black spider icon briefly appeared and was triggered.

Natasha Romanoff used evidence of unauthorized edits in the Liaison Office server logs to pressure Gwen Stacy into an alliance that would secure resources for the Internal Affairs Inspection Office. Lynn learned that the two had met and examined their names on the Joint Exploration Supervisory Group roster.

• Natasha Romanoff reviewed evidence that the Liaison Office server logs had been tampered with and summoned Gwen Stacy to a confidential meeting.
• Natasha confronted Gwen with the audit findings and warned that the unauthorized edits could bring serious consequences.
• Gwen recognized that Natasha wanted political support and promised to prioritize the Inspection Office’s reasonable resource needs.
• Natasha left the black dossier with Gwen, and the two formed a risky alliance.
• Lynn received a covert message confirming the meeting and studied Natasha Romanoff and Gwen Stacy’s names on the supervisory group roster.

Lynn established a Joint Exploration Supervisory Group to prevent Natasha Romanoff and Gwen Stacy’s private alliance from distorting the exploration plan. He assigned them to the advance team alongside Hela, Wanda Maximoff, and Jean Grey, leaving the expedition poised for a tense power struggle.

• Lynn decided to counter Natasha Romanoff and Gwen Stacy’s secret agreement without confronting either of them directly.
• Lynn summoned Gwen Stacy and proposed a Joint Exploration Supervisory Group to oversee resources, coordination, and transparency.
• Lynn appointed Natasha Romanoff as discipline supervisor and ordered Gwen Stacy to join the group as the Liaison Office representative.
• Gwen Stacy drafted and distributed the appointment document, while Hela, Wanda, Jean Grey, and Natasha reacted to the new roster.
• The final advance-team roster named Hela as field commander, Wanda Maximoff as chief of technology, and Jean Grey, Natasha Romanoff, and Gwen Stacy as the Joint Supervisory Group.

Jean Grey invoked her authority as Special Envoy to conduct an unauthorized psychic prescan of Ultron’s coordinates, while Lynn and Wanda tried to stop her through safety regulations. As Jean’s Phoenix Force neared the target and the secret traces of Lynn’s simulation, Wanda prepared to cut off the link.

• Jean Grey cited the crisis response regulations and announced that she would prescan the target coordinates before the advance team entered the unknown region.
• Lynn asked Wanda whether cross-dimensional psychic probing required a Chaos Firewall, and Wanda confirmed that department supervision was mandatory.
• Jean Grey refused to wait for the prescribed safeguards and unleashed her psychic power toward Ultron’s coordinates.
• Jean Grey’s Phoenix Force neared the shattered star-region ruins, threatening to expose traces of Lynn’s system as Lynn silently signaled Wanda to intervene.

Lynn used procedure and Wanda’s Chaos Firewall to stop Jean Grey from probing the mysterious coordinates, then ordered the flagship to continue its exploration mission. Jean obeyed but sensed that Wanda’s magic resonated with the coordinates and suspected Wanda was hiding a secret tied to Lynn.

• Wanda invoked the Chaos Firewall under the Management Committee’s safety protocols and severed Jean Grey’s psychic link to the coordinates.
• Lynn reprimanded Jean for acting without joint approval, and Jean returned to her seat after reluctantly agreeing to obey.
• Lynn ordered Gwen Stacy to read the departure procedure and set course for the Preventive Dimension Exploration coordinates.
• Jean Grey recalled feeling a shared-origin resonance between Wanda’s scarlet barrier and the coordinates, and concluded that Wanda knew their secret.

Hela led the team into an abandoned TVA outpost, where they discovered physical archives sealed with the Negative Zone Management Committee’s S-rank insignia. A cabinet labeled “Lynn · High-Risk Variant” connected their previous discoveries to Lynn, and Hela prepared to open it with the Night Sky Sword.

• Hela ordered a landing at the abandoned TVA branch and led Wanda, Jean Grey, Natasha, Gwen Stacy, and an elite squad into the outpost.
• Hela dissolved the time-locked control-room door with her death force before Gwen Stacy could finish analyzing the lock.
• Gwen Stacy found the Negative Zone Management Committee’s S-rank seal on the physical archive cabinets and realized the files should not exist in the long-abandoned branch.
• Wanda sensed energy linked to Sokovia and Asgard in the cabinets, while Jean Grey sensed psychic echoes of agony and resolve, and Natasha recognized the room as a trap.
• Hela found a cabinet labeled “Lynn · High-Risk Variant” and raised the Night Sky Sword toward its keyhole.

Hela’s attempt to cut open a TVA filing cabinet triggered a timeline-erasing countdown, while Gwen Stacy and the others discovered it could only be opened by a specific identity. As the countdown accelerated, Natasha sensed something else had awakened in the Main Control Room.

• Hela struck the cabinet with the Night Sky Sword, but temporal stasis runes stopped the blade and activated a self-destruct countdown.
• Gwen Stacy used her Data Pad to learn that the cabinet would be erased from the timeline when the countdown ended and that its defenses included an identification layer.
• The group realized the cabinet was marked for Lynn and that none of them could penetrate its stasis field.
• Wanda sensed the runes’ power source beneath the room, but Jean Grey warned that destroying it could collapse the stasis field and ruin the cabinet.
• Gwen Stacy noticed that the countdown was accelerating, and Natasha sensed something else awake among the dark consoles.

Wanda tried to take control of the cabinet with Chaos Magic, but Hela and Jean Grey challenged her motives and proposed safeguards as the countdown accelerated. The cabinet remained unopened as the countdown reached its final second.

• Gwen Stacy stopped Wanda from acting and urged everyone to deal with the cabinet first.
• Wanda invoked emergency regulations to claim the Department of Technology's authority and proposed stripping the cabinet's runes with Chaos Magic.
• Hela questioned who would control the cabinet's contents and challenged Wanda's takeover.
• Gwen Stacy asked how long Wanda's plan would take, and Wanda admitted it needed twenty seconds despite the dwindling countdown.
• Jean Grey warned that Wanda's magic would expose the identification layer and offered to shield everyone from it.
• Hela proposed that all three parties work together, but the countdown raced from five seconds to one as they argued.

Jean Grey proposed using psychic resonance to open the Archive Cabinet, but Gwen Stacy rejected all three officials’ plans and called for a jointly approved procedure. The cabinet then detected Natasha Romanoff’s residual brainwaves and began matching them.

• Jean Grey explained that the Recognition Layer responded to a specific brainwave frequency and proposed simulating it with psychic resonance.
• Wanda offered to follow Jean Grey’s psychic probe with Chaos Magic, while Hela proposed guarding the cabinet with her sword; Jean Grey rejected both plans as dangerous interference.
• Natasha challenged Gwen Stacy to establish a procedure, and Gwen Stacy invoked Article Nine to reject all three proposals and suggest moving the cabinet only after the parties agreed on a method.
• Gwen Stacy reminded Wanda, Hela, and Jean Grey that the cabinet belonged to Lynn and that opening it without permission could make them violators of a top-secret seal.
• A console detected residual brainwaves matching Romanoff · Natasha and reported a forty-one percent match.

Natasha proposed a joint procedure to remove the sealed cabinet, and the four directors carried it out without opening it. As they prepared to leave, machinery began running despite the branch office’s power having been shut off, and Natasha realized something had awakened.

• Natasha denied knowing what was inside the cabinet, and Gwen Stacy argued that the 41% brainwave match was too low to count as evidence.
• Natasha proposed cutting the cabinet free with its foundation and transferring it to the Evidence Vault under joint seals and oversight.
• Jean Grey, Wanda, Hela, and Gwen Stacy agreed on safeguards, and Natasha shut off the underground power while Hela cut along Gwen Stacy’s calibrated line.
• The cabinet was sealed in a Force Field Sealing Container, and its recognition layer went dormant.
• Machinery began roaring from the darkness, and Gwen Stacy said the branch office’s main energy supply should have been exhausted decades ago.
• Natasha concluded that cutting the cabinet free had awakened something.

Gwen Stacy explained that the sector's defense protocol had trapped the group in a shrinking rift that would erase them, while cutting off Hela's fleet and defeating their attempts to break through. As the group questioned whether Lynn had known about the danger, Gwen noticed the rift was contracting more slowly along the east wall.

• Gwen Stacy identified the restart as an automatic defense protocol triggered when the control asset was removed, and Jean Grey discovered the room had been pruned out of the timeline.
• Gwen Stacy explained that the membrane was a boundary to nothingness, while Wanda's Chaos Magic and Hela's sword could not breach it.
• Natasha noticed the membrane was closing inward, and Gwen Stacy estimated that the room would be erased in less than the time it took an incense stick to burn.
• Jean Grey asked whether Lynn had known about the danger, and Wanda said they would ask him if they escaped.
• Gwen Stacy noticed that the patterns on the east wall were moving more slowly than the rest.

Gwen Stacy warned Hela and Jean Grey that their plans to break through the fault would kill everyone or trigger another pruning, while Natasha proposed investigating the Control Console. Gwen discovered a Management Committee identification number ending in LNH beneath it, leaving the group with a possible clue to escape.

• Hela proposed waiting for her fleet to fire on the fault, but Jean Grey warned that the space beyond it was nothingness and offered to tear open an exit.
• Wanda warned that Jean Grey's opening could pour nothingness into the Timeline's main trunk, while Gwen Stacy stopped both plans with simulations showing they would doom the group.
• Gwen Stacy explained that Hela's volley would accelerate the fault's contraction and Jean Grey's opening would trigger another pruning that could kill living people.
• Natasha proposed asking the Control Console how to stop the protocol, and Gwen Stacy found a Management Committee identification number ending in LNH beneath it.

Gwen Stacy organized Hela, Wanda, and Jean Grey to power the Main Control terminal together, suspending the deadly protocol. The terminal then displayed an old recording of Lynn, leaving the group with a newly awakened mystery.

• Gwen Stacy discovered that the terminal needed Death Force, Chaos Magic, and Psychic Power supplied at the same time to restart.
• Hela, Wanda, and Jean Grey disputed how to divide control, while Natasha warned that the light membranes were closing in.
• Gwen Stacy set the rules and monitored the three energies as Hela, Wanda, and Jean each secretly explored a different part of the terminal.
• The combined energy restarted the terminal, halted the membranes, and suspended the fault protocol.
• A projector activated on its own and showed an old recording of Lynn pushing a glowing red document across a table.

Gwen Stacy and the others watched silent footage of Lynn making a deal over a red document, then unlocked the remaining recordings stored in the terminal. The first recording ended with Lynn facing the camera and silently forming two words, leaving the group poised to discover what he had to say.

• The footage showed Lynn offering a red document to an unidentified person, who bargained before accepting it at his price.
• Jean Grey recognized the exchange as a sale and sensed that the document’s aura shared an origin with the Archive Cabinet’s seal.
• Gwen Stacy found more recordings bundled with the restart protocol and explained that three parties’ signatures could unseal them.
• Hela, Wanda, and Jean Grey signed the release, while Wanda and Hela recalled Lynn’s warm eyes and Natasha suspected he had deliberately left the recordings behind.
• The recording ended with Lynn facing the camera and silently forming two words before the image froze.

Wanda, Natasha, and the others investigated footage of Lynn and argued over whether his lip movements revealed a passphrase or were part of a TVA setup. After they secured the archive cabinet, the defense protocol opened an evacuation route, where awakened Mechanical Guards blocked the way to the landing craft.

• Natasha identified Lynn’s lip movements as the Russian word “signal” and suggested it was a handover passphrase.
• Natasha argued that the TVA had planted the footage to sow distrust within the Management Committee, while Gwen privately saved her lip-reading comparison records.
• Gwen sealed the original footage, and Natasha secretly slipped a tiny probe into a seam in the archive cabinet during its inspection.
• Wanda, Jean Grey, and Gwen layered their seals over the cabinet before the group prepared to withdraw.
• The defense protocol opened the evacuation route, and Gwen’s sensor feed revealed rows of awakened Mechanical Guards blocking the passage to the landing craft.

Hela, Wanda, and Jean disabled the guards protecting the Archive Cabinet without triggering the abandoned timeline’s pruning protocol, and the team carried the cabinet back to the Nibelung. As they docked, Gwen received an order to seal the cabinet and investigate an extra item hidden in Natasha’s cuff.

• Hela, Wanda, and Jean agreed to dismantle the guards with restrained methods while Gwen monitored the operation.
• Hela cut through the mechanical guards, Wanda disabled their joints and cores, and Jean stopped the heavy guards’ attack.
• Natasha collected forty-one intact chips as evidence and suspected the guards had awakened to send the team off after the cabinet was freed.
• Gwen reported that all 317 guards were disabled and the timeline remained stable, then the team departed with the Archive Cabinet.
• As the landing craft docked with the Nibelung, Gwen received an encrypted order to secure the cabinet and investigate an extra item in Natasha’s left cuff.

Gwen Stacy enforced Lynn’s order to seal the Archive Cabinet in Zero Storage Room, keeping Hela, Wanda, and Jean Grey from claiming control of it. After Natasha handed over the separate evidence case, Gwen suspected an unlisted item had been hidden beneath the cabinet and hesitated to certify that it had no accessories.

• Gwen Stacy read Lynn’s order barring all departments from handling the Archive Cabinet and requiring it to be sealed in Zero Storage Room under Liaison Office supervision.
• Hela, Wanda, and Jean Grey challenged parts of the order, but each backed away from escorting or inspecting the cabinet.
• Gwen Stacy led the Liaison Office team as they moved the cabinet into Zero Storage Room and watched its seals settle into place.
• Natasha handed Gwen Stacy the case containing forty-one chips for registration, while Gwen suspected an extra item had left Natasha’s cuff and might be hidden beneath the cabinet.
• Gwen Stacy signed the storage receipt but stopped before certifying the blank accessories field as “No accessories.”

Gwen Stacy arranged a heightened security scan to investigate Natasha, who destroyed a tiny object hidden in her cuff before it could be identified. Gwen reported the incident to Lynn but remained uneasy that another object might still be concealed in the sealed cabinet.

• Gwen Stacy invoked Wanda's new timeline-radiation rule to require the Vanguard members to pass through a heightened security scan.
• Hela and Wanda passed the scan, while Jean Grey remarked that it was scanning people rather than radiation.
• Natasha passed through the gate, crushed a hidden object in her cuff into powder, and denied Gwen Stacy any proof beyond the residue.
• Gwen Stacy ordered the residue sent for spectral analysis and reported to Lynn that Natasha had destroyed the object, possibly to keep someone else from finding it.
• Gwen Stacy wondered whether a second object remained hidden in a seam beneath the sealed cabinet.

Natasha reported that the guards’ chips contained logs with six years erased using the Management Committee’s standard procedure, but Lynn denied her examination request and ordered the chips transferred as scrap. He planned to use the transfer as bait, while new evidence tied the memory crystal used in a frame-up to three Management Committee departments, including Gwen Stacy’s Liaison Office.

• Natasha told Lynn that the chips’ duty logs covered only the final three days and bore traces of a standard Management Committee erasure procedure.
• Lynn reprimanded Natasha for scanning sealed evidence and denied the Inspection Office’s request to examine the chips.
• Lynn ordered the forty-one chips transferred to Logistics as ordinary consumables, with Gwen Stacy overseeing the transfer.
• Lynn told Gwen Stacy to make the chip shipment’s route and timing public so he could identify anyone who tried to intercept it.
• Gwen Stacy reported that memory-crystal powder found on a footplate came from a batch requisitioned by the Stability Maintenance Office, the Department of Technology, and the Liaison Office.
• Lynn ordered Gwen Stacy to keep the spectral analysis report secret while allowing the chip transfer to proceed as planned.

Gwen Stacy let Skurge’s team seize the forty-one chips under Article Seven, while imposing records and signed accountability on the Stability Maintenance Office. Lynn confirmed the handover and told her to keep watch, leaving Gwen to suspect Hela planned to pass the chips to Wanda for analysis.

• Skurge blocked Gwen Stacy’s escort and invoked Article Seven to take custody of the chips for hazard screening.
• Gwen Stacy called Lynn, received no answer, and agreed to hand over the chips under conditions requiring witnesses, daily reports, and a signed count of all forty-one.
• Skurge signed the handover form, and the Enforcement Team carried the evidence case to the Stability Maintenance Office.
• Gwen Stacy reported the seizure to Lynn, who replied, “Understood. Keep close watch.”
• Gwen Stacy realized Hela might use a request for computing support to get the chips to Wanda’s laboratory before the Standing Committee meeting.