The end of the Offee quest.

We gathered at the lab after dinner, as I began my final prep work on the Infinity Stones.

I had figured out a method to make them work anywhere, anytime, permanently. To bypass the restriction that they could only be used so long as the universe they were from was alive. I found out that they needed to use the universe as a grounding mechanism to their concepts, a sort of baseline reality. Any ideas of their concepts, were the ones that were true in their home universe, so of say, tomorrow the physics of the MCU changed so that space only curved in straight 5th dimensional lines, the nature of the Space Stone would change to mirror that fundamental change, because the MCU was to the Stones a sort of database of what their concepts should be. A database of reference. A standardized measure.

That in fact the power was in the Stones, they didn't draw it from the MCU, which is why they worked outside their home universe.

If all they needed was another basline reality, I can just ground them to the ship's hume level, the measure of reality onboard the ship. Then, the baseline for their operations will be whatever I want. Imagine a space stone that worked on the principle that the speed of light was 1m/s.

I could kill a universe by inducing instant heat death just by opening a Space Stone powered portal into it.

Absurd, I know. That was the insane level of power I could wield once I grounded them to my ship's reality. They would truly be my Infinity Stones, not the MCU's.

I looked down at the table beside Offee, with a device the size of a briefcase, containing six cavities, meant for each of the six stones, surrounded by a pneumatic isolator setup.

It was something I had made to cut off their connection to the MCU and isolate their power into my ship. With a flick of my wrist, I summoned the Stones to me, placing them carefully in their places on the device.

Reaching into the side of the briefcase-like device, I pulled out a glove from a hidden compartment.

A six fingered glove made from an Uru-Gravitonium alloy, strong enough to withstand the power of the Stones, without sacrificing the ability to conduct cosmic powers at 180 percent capacity, thanks to the Gravitonium. The glove's fingertips were connected via wire to each of the Stones, to allow ease of access.

I pulled out a potion from a portal and downed it, as a sixth finger grew on all four of my limbs and then, downed another flask of mega seed juice.

The world around me went dark as it dissolved into math and logic, the reasoned expression of the beauty of the world, all in patterns and dots, all connected by strings of delicate, careful equations.

Like a harmonic instrument played with chaotic power.

Uhnnnn!

I never get tired of this feeling!

"Alright. Let's begin." With a thought the reality anchors onboard the ship whirred to life, at full power, stalling the effects of the MCU's reality, with all it's quirks like the power cosmic and other magical forces.

Now, with the effects of the MCU's reality gone, I activated the pneumatic isolater array surrounding the device, and flipped it's polarity. Where before it extracted the spiritual component of the subjects, now it reinforced and secluded it inside the subject.

In this case, it stuffed the power of the Infinity Stones into them, stopping them from connecting to any baseline reality thus turning the inactive temporarily.

"Computer, activate dimension anchor array."

A beep on my contacts infirmed me of the successful activation of the ship spanning dimension anchor array, disrupting dimensional torque around the ship, effectively pulling us out of the MCU momentarily.

The ship began to flicker, phasing in and out of the MCU, sending out spatial and gravitational waves reeling through the plane at the end of time, ravaging the landscape below, tearing open massive chasms, shaking reality itself and the skies above, rending the wispy, reed-like nebulae littering the borderland skies to shreds.

No time to waste now.

Immediately, I undid the pneumatic isolation, and connected to the stones, pulling out miniscule amounts of powers from each of them, and attached them to the ship's reality anchors.

"Begin calibration. Hume levels at ship standard. Exclusion protocol, portal gun. Exclusion protocol, Project Vaykunth Lok." I ordered.

The lights on the glove began to flash as one by one the six different energies course through the glove, circulating over and over again, like a dialysis for the Infinity Stones, with each round attuning them more and more to my ship's baseline reality.

After enough energy had been changed, it was a simple matter of enchanting the Stones with my shard power.

My power exploded out, covering the room in a kaleidoscopic shimmer, seeping into the Stones, and with a thought, I enchanted them with one single concept.

Essence Crystallization.

Like dropping a salt crystal in a supersaturated water solution, the changed energies anchored to my ship's unique hume signature, they would act like a seed crystal, converting the Stones to my cause.

And as expected, soon enough, the stones began to thrum and flicker, in and out of existence, mirroring my ship, bringing a satisfied smile to my face.

Finally, I have done it.

Infinity Stones that can be used anywhere in the Omniverse, no restrictions.

Well, one restriction. My ship should be real and not imaginary.

Which is easy enough. I don't plan on breaching imaginary space dimensions anytime soon.

I turned to the others and gave them a thumbs up.

"Infinity Stone Recalibration complete. Let's get to the main course for tonight then."

I picked out the Stones from the device and pulled put a gauntlet made of Uru from a portal.

The Infinity Gauntlet, made entirely out of Uru nanobots.

Putting it on, the Infinity Stones shifting into place on my hand, and I walked over to the table beside me.

There on the operating table lay Offee.

"Today is the day." I muttered to myself, running my hand over Offee's swollen belly.

She had been pregnant for over two years at this point. I'm honestly surprised that the baby is still alive.

Well, today might just end up being a double gift.

Offee and my daughter, both coming back into the world of the living.

I smiled warmly and kissed Offee's stomach, as I placed my gloved hand over Offee's forehead, and pulled at it's power.

A massive surge of power burst out from the gauntlet, and my body coursed with the energy of all the Infinity Stones, tingling with excitement.

If I wasn't as strong though, this might have just killed me.

But none of that now.

Using the power in the palm of my hand, I covered Offee with it, sending the concepts into her, one at a time.

The time stone to turn back her time to the moment before her death, then the space stone to bypass reality boundaries, connecting to the timeline of Star Wars, and the reality stone to stabilize the dominant reality with relation to her.

With the mind stone, I reconstructed Offee's mind and with the soul, I reached out into the Star Wars world, scrying for her soul.

But I found....none. Until moments before her death, she was a person, recorded in the force.

Then, not seconds later, gone. Vanished as if she never even existed.

My daughter was there.

Sure. But even she wasn't a continuous recorded existence.

She was there one moment and then a blip in the record as if something had been cut.

And then she was faded. Like corrupted data.

Even my archives on Mortis didn't hold a single trace of her shortly before her death.

Only one problem.

An anomaly.

A space-time anomaly.

What even- oh.

Oh.

Suddenly, as if the world had become clear, like a blind man seeing for the first time, like ears unplugging after a sneeze, it all became crystal clear to me.

Pieces of a puzzle, stretched across multiple worlds, times and world lines, a collage of extreme proportions falling into place.

The little clues, the hints in the hunt echoed in my head.

The beeping on my time-space fuckery detector the day she died.

The kick my future self gave me.

The conspicuous absence of Offee's soul.

"Little godling." Professor Paradox had called me.

"But you're already a god." Q had noted.

"You will succeed. Just not in the way you desire." One Above All had assured me.

But I was too blinded with distrust to see it.

I saw malice where there was none.

One Above All was right.

They weren't enemies.

They weren't lying.

The answer lay in my true nature.

I had done this.

I stumbled back from the shock as my hold over the Infinity Stones and the power petered out.

I hung my head low, and lowered my hand, pulling off the gauntlet, placing it on the table beside me.

This is pointless, I realised.

The truth of the matter, I should have realised ages ago. Not two goddamm years after she had died but rather the day she did.

The reason I couldn't revive her. The reason it wouldn't work no matter how hard I tried.

"Computer, scan Offee for trace of the Infinity Stones' powers. And date the traces."

Instantly, a chart opened up before me, graphing the energy levels and traces of the Infinity Stones' powers being used on Offee.

Twice it mentioned them in broad terms. Once today. And once, two years ago. The day she died.

It confirmed my suspicions.

I couldn't revive Offee. Not because it was impossible.

But rather....

Because I had already succeeded. Just not now. No.

I had succeeded in the future.

And like the typical asshole I am, I had taken her from my past self, to sate my own paranoia.

And somehow I don't blame the future version of me.

He was right. He couldn't trust me.

If he had just saved Offee and left her behind for me, I would have likely destroyed the time loop, never going back in time to save his Offee, leaving him stranded in a divergent timeline, high and dry, loveless, alone.

Sure, it wouldn't harm him physically, being a god and all. He would have already transcended time and space.

But emotionally....he would have been devastated.

And he acted as I would then. In his own self interest.

He did what I would do.

He saved Offee, left me a couple of hints in his past and my future and took her with him to the future, leaving behind a decoy, so it would be too late to change anything by the time I realised it.

Motherfuck-

"Papa? Is something wrong?" Riley whispered.

I didn't even realise when she had come this close.

I shook my head, rubbed my eyes and answered.

"Ahehem. No. No, nothing is wrong." I sucked in a cold breath.

"Papa just realised something. Papa is an asshole. Even to himself."

And I don't intend to improve.

If my future self thought this would lead to character growth, then fuck him. I refuse to give him the pleasure.

Riley gave me a quizzical look and I just waved her concerns off.

"Nothing. Just.... Mama Offee is going to sleep a bit longer. A long while more actually."

Of course, that still leaves me with one problem.

The baby.

A problem easily solved.

I can just operate her out of Offee and pkace her in an artificial womb.

And that's exactly what I did.

With a snap, in an instant, my daughter disappeared from the belly off this copy of Offee and into one of my artificial wombs I had lying around for her.

She would grow up there till she was ready to come out, healthy and older.

And with a full college education implanted into her head.

Then, as if on cue, Offee's body began to crumble and unravel, splattering on the table, dripping onto the floor like goo.

I sighed, something ached in my chest, a pain of loss I felt once more, losing Offee a second time and swiped the grime away, cleaning the room with a low powered disintegration beam.

"Oh! Is that...a new sister?" Ace asked.

"Yep. I'll call her...Luminara." I sighed, relaxing, truly relaxing for the first time in a long, long time.

As if a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders.

Now that I knew that I would have to save Offee in the future to complete the time loop, I didn't need to worry about her at all.

The quest to revive my wife was already a success.

And thus, not necessary anymore.

At least something good came out of this.

Wanda placed a hand over my shoulders, realizing what I was implying, and gave me a hug.

"If you want to talk, I'm here." She whispered.

I smiled and hugged her back.

I have good friends and well, that's enough for now.

"Don't worry. I'm not sad. Just annoyed at my future self."

Riley muttered an 'oh' beside me, as she too realized what I meant, and seconds later, so did Ace.

I chuckled at her surprised expression, patting their heads.

"I told you didn't I? Don't worry about it." I assured.

It's not her fault. She's not an expert in time travel. She's a medical and chemical specialist.

And Ace....well, she's certainly something.

"Now, that's enough for today. It's time for bed now. Come on." I said to 'awws' and 'boos', even Wanda eland Pietro joined in, laughing along with me.

"Fine. Maybe not yet. Let's watch a movie."

"Cab we-" Star raised a hand.

"Yes Star. You can have cake." I cut him off, picking him up in my arms.

"Who wants some cake?"

Almost instantly all hand srose in the air, even mine.

"Let's get some cake too." I smiled warmly and opened a portal to the living room.

Maybe a family night isn't bad once in a while.

______________________

MC finally realises what his future self did and ends his foolish quest to revive his wife.

Wanda waifu finally has a chance as he opens his heart to love again!

Thanks for reading!

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