Vormir was a barren world, drifting in a dark expanse as silent as a tomb. Civilizations had perished here, and life was a rarity. Even the most hardened adventurers avoided this place...
A ripple of cerulean light expanded outward. Sean stepped through, then relaxed his grip on the golden Gauntlet, causing the shimmering rift to slowly contract and fade.
His boots met solid ice. Frigid currents howled and swirled around him. In every direction, jagged peaks stretched to the horizon, towering over the desolate, lifeless ground.
Overhead, the light of the system's star appeared smothered. Only a faint, ghostly outline remained. It was essentially a black sun suspended in the sky.
"Vormir..." Sean murmured softly.
The five Infinity Stones embedded in golden Gauntlet began to emit a strange resonance, a call to kindred energies, in hopes of stirring a subtle connection.
Sean gazed toward the distant mountains, where brooding clouds churned like a furious tide, smothering world beneath them.
He extended his psychic senses like a radar pulse, rippling outward in concentric waves. Within minutes, it had swept across the entire surface of the planet.
"There." A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He had sensed the Soul Stone's veiled resonance. At the summit of a towering peak, someone, or something, seemed to be waiting...
Without wasting time, Sean headed over.
"Welcome, wielder of the Infinity Stones." A hoarse voice greeted him as he ascended the final steps to the summit.
A spectral figure draped in black robes drifted into view. The fabric seemed ancient beyond reckoning, as though it might crumble to dust at any moment.
"You have many names; Sean Cyphers, the Sentinel, Guardian of the Nine Realms, Master of Knowhere..." The spectral figure, billowing like smoke, seemed to know the identity of everyone who came to this place.
Sean was not surprised by this. The moment he had set foot here, a deeply concealed energy signature had swept over him, carried on the frigid wind. The mysterious robed figure seemed to have drawn his identity from that.
"I've come for the Soul Stone," he stated, cutting straight to his purpose.
"I am a prisoner of the Soul Stone, bound here for all eternity, never to know freedom..." The figure had a gaunt, blood-red skull for a face, as though the flesh had been peeled clean away, his gaped eye sockets empty and unsettling, "To claim this stone, you must pay a heavy price. Every soul who comes here believes they can bear it, but they cannot. You must make a sacrifice! You must give up everything!"
Sean's eyes flickered. The figure before him was none other than Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull, great leader of Hydra from the previous century.
Strictly speaking, he was the first super-soldier ever created by Dr. Abraham Erskine, predating even Captain America. But the serum had twisted Schmidt's nature, inflaming his ambition and madness. He had attached himself to the Führer of the Third Reich and expanded Hydra's power with ruthless efficiency, seeking to conquer the world through force.
Captain America had stopped him. On a plane loaded with devastating weapons, bound for New York, those fated adversaries had fought their final battle. Schmidt had touched the Tesseract, and the Space Stone had flung him across the universe to Vormir, the planet where the Soul Stone was hidden.
"We're from the same world," Sean said, his expression relaxed as he followed the Red Skull's lead, "I know Captain America, Your old friend. I'm also on... reasonably good terms with Hydra."
"Steve Rogers? He's still alive? I hope he's learned the taste of loneliness from watching his friends and loved ones slip away one by one, leaving him all alone in this life." The Red Skull's voice was ragged, with a hint of nostalgia.
Long ago, this great leader of Hydra had also chased the Infinity Stones, even managing to possess one. Having discovered it in a Norwegian temple, Schmidt, well-versed in Norse mythology, had become convinced that the Tesseract had fallen from Odin's own vault.
He believed it held the supreme power to rule the world...
"There was a time when I might have stood where you stand, hunting these stones... but the Tesseract abandoned me. It exiled me here, condemning me to guide others toward a treasure I could never possess myself." The Red Skull halted before a vast, crumbling edifice of ancient architecture.
Sean surveyed his surroundings with open curiosity. Vormir had clearly once hosted a prosperous and thriving civilization, but like Morag, the world that had held the Power Stone, it had fallen to some unknown catastrophe. Its people were gone, its culture extinct...
"The stone rests beneath your feet. Now... make your choice. Pay the price."
Sean stopped at the edge of a sheer cliff. The freezing wind screamed and lashed at the barren rock. Far below, an immense altar built by long-dead hands sprawled across the chasm floor, its surface etched with intricate lines that seemed to connect to some unseen void.
"The Soul Stone holds a position of unique significance. You might even call it... a form of wisdom. To ensure that whoever possesses it truly understands its power, the stone demands a sacrifice." The Red Skull's hollow eyes gleamed with faint mockery. The Soul Stone would only reveal itself once its bearer had paid the terrible price. This was a curse woven into fate itself, and none could defy it, "To claim the stone, you must lose that which you love most. A soul... for a soul."
Sean didn't seem surprised by the revelation, but his expression turned complicated.
'That which I love most... Did I ever truly love anyone?'
Images flickered through his mind; faces, some aloof, some warm and alluring, each with a distinct and captivating charm. Each lingered for only a fleeting moment before shattering into fragments.
As much as Sean wanted to deny it, the brutal truth lay bare before him. He loved only himself.
For a while, he was silent. Then a resolved smile crossed his face, "Fair enough, an equivalent exchange."
He raised the Infinity Gauntlet.
"The Soul Stone exists within an unknown void. It is the sacred offering of Vormir. Everyone who craves its power endures great trials to reach this place, only to sacrifice the one they love in exchange for this cursed and terrible strength." The Red Skull assumed Sean meant to summon the stone by force with the other five gems, bypassing the cruel prerequisite, "The altar beneath your feet was built by Vormir's ancient inhabitants. Without the sacrifice of a beloved soul, the stone will not appear."
Sean ignored him. On the golden Gauntlet, five lights began to glow. The atmosphere shivered with violent disturbance.
Deep within his eyes, a golden radiance blazed. The Sentinel's armor materialized around him in an instant, then, wave after wave of terrifying energy erupted from him, causing the entire planet of Vormir to tremble.
The pure golden light dimmed, and a profound darkness descended. A black cape unfurled from Sean's shoulders, snapping wildly in the hurricane gale.
The Void...
Before Red Skull could utter a sound, the sheer force of the Void's manifestation blasted him apart into scattering wisps. It was as though the primal darkness of the universe had erupted.
Even with Sean simply standing still, the space around him fractured and collapsed like shattering mirrors, the mountain range below his feet groaned and shuddered.
*Whoosh*
Sean took a single breath, and the atmosphere detonated like a powder keg, roaring with explosive thunder.
"All this time, you have existed within my body... I have faced this tyrannical and mad version of myself, this being born to destroy everything. Even though you craved slaughter and were always insatiable, I never resisted nor feared you. I willingly and wholly embraced you. We are one and the same. I am the Sentinel, and I am the Void... I am Sean Cyphers. I love only myself. I chase power... and now the time has come to make a sacrifice." His inner voice became spoken words, echoing beneath the brooding sky.
Sean, now fully merged with the Void, clenched his fist. His pitch-black eyes blazed like volcanic craters, brimming with scorching desire.
"You are right. It is time to make a sacrifice. We must become more powerful. Like a rider cloaked in death, we must gallop toward the ultimate pinnacle." The Void nodded slowly.
Around the Infinity Gauntlet, iridescent light crackled and danced like fine arcs of electricity. Gradually, a distinct silhouette began to take shape.
The Reality Stone rewrote reality...
The Mind Stone granted it will...
The Space Stone sustained its form...
The Time Stone froze its moment...
The Power Stone forged its body...
All five stones blazed with light, ripping the Void out of Sean's own being and condensing it into a separate, independent existence.
Sean looked at Red Skull, who was beginning to coalesce back into form like wisps smoke, and spoke softly, "Offering myself as a sacrifice... I am willing to pay this price."
He reached out, seized the Void by the throat, and without a moment's hesitation, snapped its neck.
His other self, the Void, never resisted. From beginning to end, it accepted death with calm surrender.
The cold corpse tumbled over the cliff's edge and crashed heavily onto the altar below.
In that instant, the air churned and the sky changed color. The colossal altar shuddered, and a blinding column of light erupted upward, engulfing Sean.
The world went white, and moment of absolute silence followed. Then the world returned to normal.
Red Skull stood frozen in disbelief. The exchange had been made. The Soul Stone had somehow materialized, resting quietly in Sean's palm.
"It is time," Sean whispered. He had traded the Void for the Soul Stone.
He pressed the final gem into the Infinity Gauntlet. The moment it clicked in its slot, a surge of overwhelming power flooded through his being, as though a circuit had been completed. It was a sensation beyond anything he had ever felt.
Sean felt an illusory sense of transcendence, as though he stood above all the laws of the universe. The stars lay beneath his feet, the cosmos rested in his palm.
Like an omnipotent deity, he spanned time and space, wielding creation and annihilation. Like a single droplet containing countless molecules of water, Sean's unique, indivisible self now encompassed a multitude of dimensions.
Undoubtedly, at this moment, he had fully ascended to the level of a Universal entity.
A torrent of golden energy erupted from within him. The Sentry's power had been fully assimilated.
"Thanos... it's time to finish this." Now presiding over time and space, able to annihilate a single universe with ease, Sean slowly raised his right hand.
The Infinity Gauntlet gleamed, the six stones shining with dazzling brilliance. As their wielder, he could now restart this universe at will.
"I am the author of this ending." His fingers came together, and...
*Snap!*