Fantastic Four: The Engineer of Eternity

Chapter X: Welcome to the Future

        "Thank you for sitting down with me, Dr. Richards." Special Agent Brand begins.

"Well, you said you'd be in contact." Reed responds. "I figured you'd show up at our doorstep again some day. Thought I should be ready." Reed slides a folder of papers towards Agent Brand.

Agent Brand flips through the papers, skimming the information. She stops on the last page, "Kang? That's his name? He's a time traveler?"

Reed nods his head.

"That would explain a lot actually. We've had several anomalies popping in and out of our planet, almost like it was coming and going through the timestream. That didn't really make sense at first, but now it's starting to. He's been keeping tabs on us for a while."

Reed leans forward, "I don't think it's over."

"How do you mean?" Agent Brand asks.

"All I know right now is that... Kang is inevitable. Be ready for another one to pop up." Reed says with a stern expression.

"Another one?" Agent Brand asks. "Hahaha! I love my job." Brand stands up and shakes Reed's hand. "We need to stay in contact." Brand hands a card to Reed with just a frequency. "The Sentient World Observation and Response Department thanks you for all that you've done, Reed Richards." Agent Brand clicks the mic in her ear, "Alright, I'm done."

Just then, a holographic mask covers Brand's head as a giant beam of light encompasses Agent Brand and beams her up into a giant ship hidden high up above the clouds in space. The ship appears to be in the shape of an enormous sword. Some day, The Fantastic Four will come to know of it as Damocles Base.

Sue, Johnny, and Ben come running into the lab after hearing all the commotion, "Reed?" Sue asks for clarification on the situation.

Reed turns around with a giant smile on his face, "Welcome to the future."

Limbo. Floating through the endless space of nothingness is He Who Remains. After accepting defeat, he's ok with hurdling through the endless reaches of the dark. Until...

"Hhhhheeeee Whoooooooo Remainsssssssss." A mysterious voice calls out.

"What? Who is that?" He Who Remains asks into the darkness when suddenly, he gets caught in what feels like a spider web. He inspects the material. It looks and feels like a sleek black suit. Just then, He Who Remains looks up to see something slithering down towards him. It's the other Reed!

"What was it you called me? The one evil variant?" The Other says with a maniacal tone.

The make-shift web The Other created out of a large expansion of his own body starts to wrap around and constrict He Who Remains.

"How did you know... I said that?" He Who Remains asks as The Other's body continues to wrap around and tighten.

"I found a way out. Did you know Limbo is just a series of layers upon layers of pocket realities? I discovered how to jump between them and exist between reality and Limbo. It's peaceful. Quiet. Gives you a lot of time to think. Nobody can bother me here unless they're pruned... or unless I want them here." The Other motions towards a series of floating Reed Richards corpses throughout their current space of Limbo. He's been busy since he was pruned.

While breathing becomes increasingly harder, He Who Remains manages another question, "What do you want?"

"You said we all have roles. Even called Reed, The Engineer of Eternity. That got me thinking. If I'm the evil one, I must have veered from my course of destiny into another. Who am I in the grand scheme of the multiverse?"

He Who Remains replies, "The Maker of Oblivion."

"The Maker, huh?" he says with glee. "I like the implications of that."

He Who Remains' bones begin to break within The Maker's coiled body.

"Tell me more." The Maker demands as he continues to crush the life out of He Who Remains. "Tell me... EVERYTHING."

TO BE CONTINUED...