The void folds around Grant like a slow, endless current. Crimson lightning trails behind him, a living comet threading through the black. Each surge of speed is silent in the vacuum, yet he feels the universe vibrate with every heartbeat.
Protector…
Celestius's voice rolls across dimensions—resonant and low, like a storm speaking from behind the stars. The Core tilts toward imbalance. Hurry.
A shimmer blooms ahead—a sphere of shifting light that bends the dark into iridescent ribbons. Grant presses forward, energy sparking off his suit until the sphere blossoms open, revealing a platform of silver stone adrift above a boundless ocean of galaxies. Worlds swirl below like jeweled whirlpools.
He lands with a low crackle of static. The terrace feels alive under his boots, humming with the pulse of creation.
Light gathers at the platform's edge. Celestius emerges, its form vaster and more intricate than before: a living constellation of stars and nebulae shaped into the silhouette of a colossal figure. Threads of cosmic dust spiral outward, tracing the architecture of entire galaxies across its frame.
"Grant Howell of Earth-61724," the being intones, voice both infinite and intimate. "The Core weakens. The lattice that binds reality frays. I have seen the first fractures."
Grant steadies himself, crimson arcs flickering along his arms. "What's causing it?"
Celestius lifts a hand of starlight. Beyond the terrace, the sea of galaxies ripples, and rifts appear—jagged seams of shadow bleeding across the cosmos.
"A force moves beyond the Spheres," Celestius says. "Older than breath, patient as void. It seeks to corrupt the weave of existence, to hollow the Core until every world collapses inward."
Grant watches the dark fissures spread like cracks in glass. "Another Protector?"
"Not a Protector," Celestius replies, the constellation's glow dimming for a heartbeat. "Something outside the Architect's design. A will that feeds on imbalance. It has no name that can be spoken, only the promise of unmaking."
The weight of the revelation presses against Grant's chest. Earth's politics, the White House, the protests—they feel impossibly small, almost unimportant.
"What do you need me to do?" he asks.
"You are the Protector, Quish," Celestius answers, galaxies glinting in its eyes. "Your world anchors a chain of realities. If the Core falls, your Earth will be the first to shatter. You must ascend, claim the mantle of a true Protector, and confront the darkness before it crosses the Rift."
The terrace trembles, stars wheeling faster overhead. Crimson light answers from within Grant, a heartbeat syncing to the infinite. He takes a step forward, staring into the chasm of galaxies and the widening seams of night.
"I came here to protect my world," he says, voice low but certain. "Show me how to protect all of them."
Celestius extends a hand of burning starlight. "Then ascend, Grant. Become more than symbol, more than storm. Become what the Core requires."
The universe tilts, and the Rift yawns open—a gate of raw creation waiting for his choice.
The Rift widens, its edges alive with creation's light. Grant feels it tug at every atom, a gravity deeper than any planet's pull.
Celestius does not move its outstretched hand, but the voice deepens, threading through Grant's mind and the stars themselves.
"Ascension is not a crown," it says. "It is metamorphosis. A Protector is not merely named—he is remade."
Grant's crimson arcs answer instinctively, racing along the black-and-red weave of his suit. Beneath the fabric, the Luxium fused in his bones thrums in perfect counterpoint to the Omniverse, as if the universe itself is breathing through him. Each pulse syncs tighter, until he can hear the rhythm in his own heartbeat.
Images strike like lightning—no time to blink.
Earth aflame beneath a storm of black shards.
Spheres folding inward, their skies splitting like glass.
A silhouette stitched from void, fingers hooked into the seams of existence, tearing.
The visions burn and vanish, leaving a taste of ozone and inevitability.
Grant staggers but holds his ground. "You're showing me futures," he says, voice rough. "All of them?"
"Possibilities," Celestius replies, the constellations in its chest flickering like a million dying suns. "Each choice you make bends the lattice. Your courage or your doubt can topple worlds unseen."
Grant draws a breath that feels older than his years. "I wanted to protect my city. My friends." He lifts his gaze to the endless galaxies churning below. "Now you're asking me to guard everything."
"The Core exists in every heartbeat of every Sphere," Celestius answers. "Without balance, none survive. You are that balance, Grant Howell of Earth-61724. Your name is already written in the weave."
The silver terrace quakes beneath them, the Rift's light spilling higher, washing Grant in crimson and starlight. He feels the weight of infinite endings pressing against his skin—terrifying, magnificent, undeniable.
Celestius lowers its shining hand an inch closer. "Step through, and you are no longer only Quish. You are the Protector. The burden is eternity, the reward existence itself."
Grant's fingers tighten, red lightning crackling between knuckles as the cosmos leans in, waiting for his answer.
The Rift dilates, and the terrace trembles like a living drum. From its center rises a lattice of pure light—a vast, breathing constellation that hangs above Grant like a second cosmos.
Lines of crimson energy streak outward, threading through galaxies, weaving patterns too intricate for a human mind to follow. At each intersection a world flickers: shimmering Earths, mirrored Spheres, infinite lives playing out in an endless kaleidoscope.
Celestius lifts a hand and the lattice bends, narrowing until every radiant strand flows toward one pulsing nexus. A heartbeat of molten red.
"Behold the Core," the being intones, voice carrying the hush of collapsing stars. "Every universe drinks from its pulse. Each world exists because this one breathes."
Grant steps closer, the glow washing over his suit until black and crimson merge into a single flare. In the center of the pattern he sees it—his Earth, small and bright, yet every thread converges there like rivers into a sea.
The truth lands heavier than any vision: Westvale's smoke, the White House standoff, even the Juggernaut—only ripples of something infinitely larger. Every action he's taken has already nudged the balance of creation.
Celestius does not soften the revelation.
"If the Core fractures, the weave of existence unravels. No universe survives the unraveling."
Grant feels the weight of countless lives pressing against his ribs. "All of it…leans on one world?"
"On the anchor that you embody," Celestius replies. "Protector is not a title of flesh. It is resonance. To guard the Core, you must move beyond the limits of body and time."
The lattice brightens until the terrace itself fades, stars bleeding into red luminescence. Grant's heartbeat matches the cosmic rhythm, faster, deeper, until the sound is everywhere—inside bone, inside thought.
A whisper of doubt claws at him—Anna's face, the Ampers' laughter, the streets of Westvale—but the threads of the multiverse pull tighter, urging him forward.
Celestius extends a final gesture, a doorway of pure creation opening within the lattice.
"Step through, Grant Howell. Become the heartbeat you protect."
Crimson lightning gathers in his chest as he stares into the gateway, the weight of infinite worlds balanced in a single choice.
The cosmic lattice shudders and unravels into a whirl of light. A storm erupts—soundless yet deafening—folding the terrace into a cyclone of stars and shadow. Gravity twists sideways; whole constellations warp into spirals as if the universe itself is testing its own edges.
Grant is yanked into the maelstrom.
Memories strike like lightning bolts:
His mother's voice, low and urgent—Never be weak.
Anna's call across the void, a lifeline of belief.
The Juggernaut's cannon flare, the taste of ozone as he stood between annihilation and his friends.
The White House glare, cameras capturing his defiance.
Each scene flares, collapses, and reforms, probing the seams of his will. Fear claws first: visions of Westvale burning again, the Ampers erased. Anger follows—at Vorath, at Veynar, at a world that hunts the Gifted. Then doubt, the cruelest cut: a whisper that he is still only Grant Howell, a man who once ran to escape.
The storm presses harder, a kaleidoscope of temptations and regrets, until the difference between memory and reality blurs.
He draws a breath that feels carved from lightning.
No.
He does not run.
Crimson energy rises from within, threading every nerve until his heartbeat thunders in perfect rhythm with the vast pulse of the Multiverse. The chaos no longer tosses him—it flows with him. Red arcs coil around his body, sharpening from wild sparks into clean, deliberate lines, each strike a signature of intent.
Stars settle. The terrace reforms beneath his feet, but it is changed, gleaming with a quiet luminescence that answers the steady beat in his chest.
Grant stands taller, the crimson light around him no longer a storm of destruction but a mantle of purpose—power held, not unleashed.
Celestius watches, galaxies shifting in its eyes. "The trial is met," the cosmic voice murmurs. "Protector, you are ready."
The last tremor of the trial dissolves into silence. Darkness stretches infinite and velvet, pricked by a million cold stars. Then—like a sunrise turned inside out—a new horizon unfurls.
A colossal ring of crystalline light hangs in the void, its circumference so vast it seems to braid with eternity. Rivers of molten nebula course through its lattice, each current flashing the colors of unborn galaxies. At its heart rises a city of impossible geometry: spires of living starlight, arches woven from gravity and memory, bridges that shimmer like frozen auroras.
Celestius lifts an arm of glittering constellations. "Behold the Citadel," the voice intones, echoing through Grant's bones as much as his ears. "When the Omniverse is still, the Protectors gather here. No Sphere rules this place. No single world may claim it. Here, purpose alone defines existence."
The ring swells closer until the terrace where Grant stands merges seamlessly with one of its radiant bridges. The very air vibrates—a low, resonant chorus like a thousand heartbeats in harmony.
Figures emerge along the crystalline avenues: beings of every conceivable form and scale. Some wear shapes almost human, cloaked in shifting colors. Others are pure patterns of light, spirals of sentient flame, silhouettes built from sound or shadow. Each presence carries a gravitational pull of its own, the weight of entire realities.
They turn as one to regard him.
For a breath, Grant feels the distance of home like a blade. He sees Westvale's battered skyline, Anna's steadfast eyes, the Ampers watching dawn break. He senses their lives moving forward—imperfect, resilient—threads already steadied by his choice.
Celestius's vast voice softens, though it remains as deep as the Rift itself. "Your Earth endures because you have set its balance in motion. You are no longer bound to a single horizon. You are the Core's sentinel, standing where only inevitability may stand."
Crimson light gathers along Grant's suit, steady and sure, no longer a storm but a quiet vow. He draws a breath that tastes of starlight and electricity.
"I protect them all," he says—not loud, but every Protector hears.
The gathered beings incline their myriad heads in silent acknowledgment, a welcome older than language.
Grant casts one last glance into the endless gulf where his world spins unseen among uncountable stars. Then he steps forward onto the Citadel's luminous bridge.
Not returning.
Ascending—
Quish, The Protector of the Multiverse.