Though twenty five years had passed within the vaulted depths of Noctorrius Primus, the moment Markus returned to Earth, not even dust had shifted in his absence. Chrono Condensation ensured it had taken no more than the blink of a cosmic eye.
He stood once again in his estate near New York, a god stepping from eternity into a world on fire.
And indeed, it was burning.
The Battle of New York had begun.
But this was not the quaint skirmish he remembers from the move Avengers, no brief rebellion of six costumed champions and a few falling towers. This was war, loud, layered, and grotesquely larger.
The portal had opened above Stark Tower, swirling with iridescent energy, and from its maelstrom poured not hundreds, but hundreds of thousands of Chitauri. Their numbers had at least tripled. Leviathans swept across the skyline. Drop pods cratered the streets. Infantry poured out in waves, not in rows but in tides.
Somewhere in that chaos, Loki smiled, watching as the world he once considered beneath him began to break apart.
And yet, Earth did not stand idle.
The Avengers were first to the field, bruised and bloodied but holding ground.
Steve Rogers, shield battered, barking orders between buildings.
Tony Stark, armor cracked, weaving between skyscrapers, buying time with flares and fury.
Thor, lightning dancing between his knuckles, fighting not for his brother, but despite him.
Bruce Banner, the Hulk unleashed in a roar, tearing apart carriers with joyful brutality.
Ororo Munroe, eyes silver, cloaked in wind and storm, her power a guided hurricane across the avenues.
Laura Kinney, claws slick, moving between enemies with surgical violence.
Piotr Rasputin, the armored colossus, shoulder checking drop ships from the sky.
But this time, they were not alone.
Descending onto the battlefield with metal and menace came the Brotherhood of Mutants, not as heroes, but as countermeasures. Erik Lehnsherr, Magneto hovered above the wreckage, metal drawn to him like prophecy.
Beside him:
Exodus, psionic warlord, tearing apart cruisers with telekinetic slashes.
Riptide, twirling cyclones of bone shrapnel through alien infantry.
Unuscione, projecting exo plasmic armor, smashing Chitauri walkers into paste.
Avalanche, collapsing entire blocks beneath the feet of advancing Leviathans.
Not far behind, came those Erik once called enemies. Now, pragmatists.
The X-Men had arrived.
Cyclops, visor glowing crimson, carving alleys of destruction through the alien ranks.
Beast, feral and brilliant, redirecting Chitauri weapons against themselves.
Jean Grey, using her telekinesis to the limit.
And above them all, from the hovering Blackbird, Charles Xavier linked their minds together in a network of psychic coordination. The X-Men moved as one.
Still, it wasn't enough.
The Chitauri did not retreat, did not pause, did not flinch.
For every Leviathan brought down, two more replaced it. For every alien foot soldier disintegrated, a fresh platoon surged from the portal's hungry mouth. This was not a punishment. This was an eradication protocol.
Markus watched it all through a suspended projection in his estate. He sipped from a glass of wine. His turquoise eyes shimmered with neither concern nor curiosity, only the cold inquiry of inevitability.
He wondered, not for the first time, if the tripled force was a reaction to him. Did some cosmic equilibrium try to correct the scale? Or was this simply one of those universes. A fractured variant where Earth was fated to burn?
He was still considering the question when his comm line chimed.
Once.
Twice.
On the third ring, he answered.
"Director," he said, his voice smooth, pleasant. "It seems the weather forecast was mistaken again. I don't recall alien invasion on today's calendar, but here we are. Raining devastation in Midtown."
On the other end, Nick Fury sat in the Helicarrier's command room, sleeves rolled, eye haunted. He said nothing at first.
Then, simply: "Earth needs your help."
There was a pause. Heavy, bitter.
"I'm ready to authorize anything you ask in return. No restrictions. Just.. stop this, please."
Markus's smile widened, but not cruelly. A measured curve of amusement.
He set the glass down with delicate precision.
"Very well. I'll assist."
Fury nearly exhaled, nearly.
Markus continued. His tone gentled, almost fatherly.
"But I want the board cleared, Director. All of it. Everyone."
Fury frowned. "Define everyone."
"The tights," Markus said softly. "The spandex. The claws and shields and thunder gods. Remove them from the field. Entirely. They've played their part."
Fury looked down at the devastation on his screens.
"You planning to nuke the city?"
Markus chuckled. "Nicholas. If I wanted to nuke the city, I'd do it from orbit, with a hymn. No, I'm going to end this. Completely. Cleanly. And I don't want distractions."
Fury's voice dropped. "And if they won't leave?"
"They will," Markus said with certainty. "Because if they don't, they'll cease to exist."
And far below, where the battle raged in fire and thunder, the wind shifted. Clouds thickened. Energy began to pull inward.
Across the globe, every broadcast fell into synchronized silence.
News anchors stammered beneath the weight of unfolding horror. The Chitauri invasion had reached critical mass. Manhattan was reduced to smoke and splinters, and even the combined strength of the Avengers, the Brotherhood, and the X-Men could only hold a line, not break it.
Then, without prelude or warning, they withdrew.
SHIELD aircraft began rerouting. The Avengers vanished from camera feeds. The Brotherhood scattered into magnetic retreat. The X-Men lifted away on psychic signal.
And the world panicked.
Until the cameras found him.
He appeared not in a storm, nor a bolt of fire, but in silence. A stillness more terrifying than any explosion.
Markus Tenebris.
Two and a half meters tall, clad in a flawless three piece suit, shoulders squared beneath weightless authority. His body was a sculpture of perfect symmetry. Broad, muscled, disciplined. His hair was pulled into a tight, ponytail; his beard was short, angular, every strand deliberate.
But it was his eyes that unsettled the world: serene, composed, untouched by war. The kind of calm that only came from total understanding.
The news choppers zoomed their cameras. hesitant, reverent.
And then, the Chitauri and devastation stopped.
Not figuratively.
Time itself froze.
Across Earth, across space, even beyond the portal. Every Chitauri locked in mid motion. Drop pods halted mid drop. Leviathans hovered weightless in the sky, mouths agape in still roars. Shattered concrete and falling debris simply hung in the air like suspended art.
Loki, mid smirk, was caught mid thought. His scepter glowing faintly, paused in his grasp.
Markus floated upward, arms at his sides, movements unhurried. As he ascended toward the swirling vortex above Stark Tower, not a single molecule moved. The air bent around him. Reality folded inward in submission.
He entered the portal, as a sovereign returning to his estate.
There, beyond, loomed the Chitauri mothership. A monstrous construct, kilometers wide, forged in forgotten nebulae and wired with sentient command systems.
Markus looked at it once. And that was all it took.
Information poured into his mind. How it was built, what it ran on, where its hive matrix was rooted, the names of the engineers, their fears when the blueprints were finalized. He knew it all.
And then, with a single thought, the mothership ceased to exist.
Disintegrated.
A breath ago, it was the center of an armada.
Now it was memory.
Markus floated silently back down through the portal.
But he was not done. Not yet.
He raised a single hand, willed the time to reverse.
And the world obeyed.
The streets below began to reverse.
Blood flowed back into wounds. Collapsed buildings rebuilt themselves in glorious reverse decay. Broken glass unshattered. Smoke retracted into flames. Every crater re formed, every car unburned. Flames curled inward and vanished into sparks. Rubble rose, reshaped, resettled.
Time bent. Reality rewound.
News stations aired every frame in silent disbelief. Some wept, others prayed.
The chaos undone, the city restored, Markus descended at last.
He passed above the wounded and healed them with a glance.
He moved past the dead and raised them with a thought.
Men who had been crushed woke as if from dreamless sleep. Children once vaporized now cried in their mothers' arms. Firefighters, paramedics, soldiers, all stood, unbroken, whole.
The world watched, breathless.
And then Markus turned his gaze back to the Chitauri who remained on Earth. Frozen in his divine stillness.
He willed, and they burned.
Every remaining Chitauri, on rooftops, in alleys, on ships and streets. Combusted where they stood, reduced to ash in complete silence. There was no scream. Only smoke. Only dust.
When the last had faded to cinder, Markus resumed time.
The world jolted forward again.
Loki, unfrozen, blinked in confusion. He had no memory of what just happened. Only a sense of dread, the haunting feeling that something colossal had occurred outside the bounds of time itself.
Then he realized he could not move.
He was being held, lifted by the throat, and the fingers clutching him might as well have been forged from uru itself.
Loki gasped, eyes wide. The divinity radiating from his captor was overwhelming. Not even Odin, in the prime of his wrath, had felt like this.
His scepter fell from his hand.
Markus looked at him with mild curiosity, as though inspecting a historical footnote.
"You made a mess," he said quietly.
Then he began to descend, dragging Loki by the throat through the sky, past stunned onlookers and unmoving crowds, down into a city that had died and been resurrected in the time it took the world to blink.
And not once, not for a second did Markus's eyes lose that calm.
The ash had not yet settled. The air was still thick with disbelief.
Across Manhattan, people began to move in reverent confusion. SHIELD agents landed on rooftops. Medical teams arrived to confirm what they couldn't explain. Civilians wept for loved ones now breathing again. And from every direction, drawn like moths to gravity, the Avengers, the Brotherhood, and the X-Men converged toward the epicenter. toward him.
The pavement beneath his feet had no scorch marks, no blood, not a hint of violence. Loki hung from his hand, limp, still gasping for air. And yet no one dared interrupt the silence.
It was Thor who stepped forward first, hammer lowered in peace. His voice, when it came, was careful, measured not out of fear, but respect.
"I thank you, Lord Tenebris," he said, "for your aid to Midgard. You have done what even Asgard could not. If I may," his eyes flicked to the gasping figure in Markus's grasp "I ask to take my brother back. He must answer for what he's done."
Markus tilted his head slightly. The gesture was thoughtful, like a chess player weighing the merit of a discarded piece.
Before he could respond, Steve Rogers stepped forward, chest squared in earnest sincerity.
"You're a good man, Mr. Tenebris," he said. "I don't know what all this 'Tenebrism' talk is about, but… God will reward your heroism."
Markus's eyebrow rose.
Fury, behind them all, groaned audibly and slapped his forehead. "Jesus, Steve," he muttered under his breath. "Now's really not the time."
Markus turned to Rogers, and for a moment stared at him. Even before his transmigration he was not a fan of the Captain. Selfless to the limit, naive to the core. A perfect tool. In the movie where Civil War he was mostly supporting Stark's side.
Then he spoke.
"I am not a man, Mr. Rogers," he said calmly. "And as for your God, he has no meaning to me. Not a whisper. Not an ounce."
His voice never rose, but it hollowed the air around them.
"If you're interested, about his questionable existence though," he added, his tone laced with grace, "I could reap your soul. Perhaps that would clarify his absence for you."
He smiled politely.
Rogers took an unconscious step back.
Somewhere behind him, Magneto chuckled, a dry, approving sound that curled like fine smoke over silence.
Markus's eyes turned, now resting on Bruce Banner.
"Tell me, doctor, if you ever decide to leash your green monkey, I'd be happy to assist."
Bruce braced himself, waiting for the tremor, the shift of bone and muscle. Nothing stirred. The Hulk did not answer. No rage. No resistance. Only quiet compliance.
Bruce swallowed, uneasy. Then, to his own surprise, he nodded.
Markus moved on.
His gaze found Fury, flat and exact.
"I want Greenland," he said. "The whole of it."
Fury blinked. "You.."
"No human presence. No settlements. No military. No satellites. I want silence. I want distance."
He didn't threaten.
"You have one month."
Fury nodded, slowly. "Understood."
Then Markus turned toward Erik Lehnsherr.
Their eyes met, and Erik, gave a small, dignified bow. "Lord Tenebris," he said simply. "Your arrival was… elegant."
Markus smiled, and for the first time since his arrival, the expression carried warmth.
"Mr. Lehnsherr," he said. "Your etiquette is admire worthy. Allow me to immortalize this moment for you."
He raised a hand. No glow. No flash. Just intention.
And before the eyes of all gathered, Magneto's form shifted fundamentally. His spine straightened. The silver retreated from his hair. The creases of time melted from his skin. Muscles refined, voice sharpened. Erik Lehnsherr stood once more in his prime. Mid twenties, powerful, precise and whole.
"It would be a shame," Markus said softly, "to lose a gentleman such as yourself to something so vulgar as age."
Erik bowed again, deeper this time.
"My gratitude," he said.
Markus inclined his head. "Your Brotherhood will always have sanctuary on my island. Should you need it, knock once."
Then his gaze shifted one final time, to Charles Xavier and the gathered X-Men behind him.
His expression cooled. His posture stilled. And with a clear disdain, he looked through them, not at them. As if they were furniture, background noise.
Not worthy of judgment, only dismissal. No one following that bald manipulator was worthy of his time.
At last, he turned again to Thor, Loki still wheezing in his grip.
Without warning, he threw the trickster prince through the air. Thor caught him with practiced ease, though the impact nearly sent him stumbling.
Markus turned back to Fury.
"I expect," he said evenly, "that you'll honor your end of the transaction, Director."
Fury opened his mouth to speak but Markus was already gone.
The air hung heavy after Markus vanished, as if the world itself was hesitant to resume.
Magneto stretched his shoulders, the fabric of his coat tightening over a body two decades younger. He flexed his fingers, admiring the crisp precision of youth returned.
Then he turned toward Charles Xavier, a small, wry smile tugging at his lips.
"I don't know what you did to displease a god, Charles," he said, voice smooth with irony. "But hopefully he won't erase you for your passive aggressive attitude and chronic moral superiority."
He gestured with two fingers, and the Brotherhood began to withdraw with military discipline, shoulders squared, boots aligned, heads forward.
No one questioned the order.
Fury, jaw tight, turned to Steve Rogers with visible restraint.
"Captain," he said slowly, "did you lose your mind?"
Steve blinked. "I was, trying to be polite."
"Polite?!" Fury's hand slapped his thigh. "Did your brain freeze under that ice, or were you always this naïve?"
"I just thought.."
"No. Stop. Don't think around him," Fury snapped. "That thing isn't God fearing. It's God proof. You heard what he said. For the love of whatever divine being you do believe in, Steve, never speak to him again. I like this planet. I'd prefer it not added to his collection."
Steve nodded cautiously, not fully understanding the reference to the worlds Markus had once shown Fury. But understanding the gravity of the warning all the same.
Beside them, Bruce Banner rubbed his arm, glancing down at his hands.
"He didn't even flinch at provoking the Hulk," he muttered. "And... Hulk didn't answer."
He paused.
"That's never happened before."
Thor, cradling Loki's unconscious form, was staring at the sky with a frown.
"I have stood in the halls of Asgard," he said softly, "and listened to gods argue over fate and war and the cycle of time..."
He looked down.
"And yet, I have never seen any of them do what he did."
Ororo Munroe stood with her arms crossed, face unreadable. The wind curled around her in protective coils.
"He rewound time like it was string," she said. "He made death forgive."
Her voice was quiet. Not afraid, just profoundly unsettled.
Piotr, still in his metal form, glanced at the restored skyline.
"I do not think we were needed," he said with quiet Russian bluntness.
Laura just nodded once, eyes scanning the distance, nostrils still twitching at the scent of burnt alien flesh.
Tony, ever irreverent, broke the silence.
"Okay," he said, lifting his faceplate with a hiss, "raise your hand if you want shawarma."
Everyone stared at him.
"What?" he added, walking toward the nearest alley with a limp in his stride. "We almost died. And then we didn't. I say that calls for meat wrapped in flatbread."
"Didn't you almost die the last three times you left the tower?" Bruce asked.
"Exactly. I'm overdue for a loyalty reward."
Reporters swarmed in then. Dozens of them, their voices overlapping, microphones waving like weapons of ceremony.
"Mr. Stark! Was that the real Tenebris?""Captain Rogers, do you support Tenebrism?""Director Fury, is Earth officially allied with Mr. Tenebris?""Ms. Munroe, can you comment on the Brotherhood's withdrawal?""Was that man even human?""Did he really resurrect the dead?"
Fury raised both hands, his voice amplified and hard.
"Ladies and gentlemen, enough."
The crowd quieted slightly.
"We're all tired. We just survived a coordinated extraterrestrial assault. You want answers, you'll get them. Just not now. For now, go home. Hug your families. Breathe air that isn't poisoned. And yes.."
He turned to Tony.
"Go get that damned shawarma."
The crowd began to disperse, though not without hesitation.
Some were still filming.
Some were still whispering.
And above it all, one word passed between them like gospel.
Tenebris.
The battle had ended in less than five minutes.
But the aftershocks would reverberate for centuries.
New York was silent.
The world was not.
Across every time zone, television screens flickered with replays of the impossible: buildings un breaking, bodies un dying, armies Chitauri in flame. Networks scrambled to reorganize programming, but the footage had already gone viral. There was no containing it.
Every major outlet broadcast the moment again and again:
CNN, its anchor staring pale faced at the monitor."Ladies and gentlemen, I, I don't know how else to say this. We've witnessed an act that defies every law of nature, theology, and physics."
BBC, the typically composed host with trembling fingers."He rewound time. Not just metaphorically, literally. Buildings, people... all returned to life."
Al Jazeera, unusually reverent in tone."Only in myth have we recorded a miracles that returned the dead, punished an invading army, and left without asking for worship. But it is worship he now receives."
NHK, subtitles scrolling across footage of burning Chitauri."His name has been spoken in one hundred and sixty seven languages... in a single day."
Around the world, viewership records shattered. Some networks crashed under the weight of demand. Entire stations were converted to 24 hour "Tenebris Coverage." They played slow motion clips of his descent, his stillness in the storm, the way he vanished without ceremony.
And in the streets, people wept.
Temples began to rise.
In Vienna, on the site of an old opera house, construction halted halfway through a municipal retrofit. Instead, a group of architects, unpaid, began sketching cathedral spires on scaffolding.
In São Paulo, a massive LED billboard showed Markus's still image, coat billowing as he held Loki aloft. Below, a written sign:"He Saved Us Without Asking."
In Jakarta, a mosque's imam stepped aside after the prayer, offering the dais to a civilian who simply recited:"Thank you, Lord Tenebris."
In Nairobi, a half finished church was converted overnight. The stained glass windows were replaced with angular silhouettes spires, not crosses and beneath them, people knelt facing the north.
By week's end, over forty three Gothic structures were under construction, none funded, none sanctioned, all rising in black stone and quiet reverence. They shared no central dogma, no scripture. Only his name.
There were no protests.
No scandals.
No condemnations.
Not this time.
Not in the Vatican.Not in Riyadh.Not even from the pulpits of extremists.
Because unlike before, this time, those who spoke out had watched what happened to their predecessors.
The priest struck dead mid sermon.The cardinal silenced under clear skies.The bishop who suffered a stroke on live television.
No one wanted to test what was now quietly called "The Third Warning."
Instead, church bells rang across continents.
But they rang for him.
At the United Nations
The chamber was full. All 193 nations present.
The emergency session was convened for a submission veiled as debate.
Footage of Nick Fury, ashen and strained was played across the large monitor. The recording was brief.
"Markus Tenebris has requested full control over Greenland.No personnel. No structures.We have one month."
Denmark's delegate stood first.
"We accept."
She didn't offer excuses or explanations. Her voice didn't even tremble.
"Our people in Greenland will be offered full relocation. The Kingdom of Denmark thanks Lord Tenebris for saving our world."
The United States abstained. Not opposed.
Norway followed.Sweden.Finland.Canada.
Each pledged cooperation. Each extended humanitarian aid to Greenland's outgoing population. Each expressed "grateful recognition of divine intervention on behalf of Earth."
The French delegate tried to speak.
He was not heard.
The Russian seat remained abstained as well.
The Chinese representative cleared his throat, adjusted his earpiece, and said: "The People's Republic has no objection."
No one challenged it.
The vote passed 168 to 0, with 25 abstentions. Not a single nation opposed.
Greenland, in the records of Earth's global council, was no longer a sovereign landmass.
It was now titled:
"Special Administrative Region of Arx Seraphim."Under Permanent Sovereign Control of Lord Markus Tenebris.
That night, news tickers carried the headlines with clinical finality:
"Greenland ceded. World leaders unified in post battle declaration.""Temples of Tenebriss double in number within 72 hours.""Earth's first divine protector?""What happens next, the world belongs to a god?"
In one corner of the internet, a newly constructed site quietly ticked upward.
tenebrism.orgCurrent Global Followers: 27,503,211
And rising.