The golden knight stepped out of the crack in the sky like he owned the air. Stormlight shimmered around him, his armor humming with divine runes. His voice boomed with righteous fury:
"I am Ser Caldrith of the Church of the Storm. And you, Rick Wyllis, are charged with crimes against the divine order!"
Rick blinked. "Wait, is this about the goat?"
Harry leaned over and whispered, "It's definitely not just about the goat."
"Fine," Rick said, flexing his fingers. "Let me guess—storm powers, holy judgment, and some dramatic speech about order versus chaos?"
Caldrith nodded proudly. "Exactly—"
But Rick was already in the air.
Fist first.
The impact echoed like a thunderclap.
The knight was knocked back into the sky, flipping end over end through several clouds. Rick landed, cracking the stone tiles beneath his boots.
Harry just stared. "You really don't do warning shots, huh?"
"I am the warning," Rick replied.
But Caldrith wasn't out.
From above, he descended with righteous fury, spear of lightning blazing. "By the will of the Lord of Storms, I—"
BOOM!
Rick caught the spear mid-attack and headbutted it.
The magical feedback shattered the ground in a fifty-foot radius.
"Man," Rick muttered, spinning the broken shaft in his hand, "people with titles always think that means they're immune to being punched."
Caldrith stood shakily, armor sparking. "You… you shattered a divine conduit with your skull."
Rick shrugged. "You should see me play dodgeball."
And then, right before the rematch could start, a portal spiraled open behind them with the sound of a thousand whispering tomes and the scent of exotic incense.
Out stepped a man in a flowing cloak of layered magic, bearing the calm of a surgeon and the stress wrinkles of someone who read too many multiversal emails.
Doctor Stephen Strange.
He took one look at the shattered landscape, at Rick's bloodied fists, at the glowing storm knight twitching on the ground, and sighed.
"Who," Strange said slowly, "let this man punch reality again?"
Loki poked his head through a floating window. "Technically, he let himself."
Ten Minutes Later… in the Pocket Dimension of Magical Time-Outs
Strange, Harry, Loki, and a thoroughly unimpressed Rick sat around an ethereal table made of flowing runes and sarcasm.
"I'll say this once," Strange began. "Rick Wyllis is a danger to all structured magical systems. He's absorbing pathways like they're snacks, destabilizing deities with casual insults, and—this is a direct quote from a Watcher—he headbutted the lightning of judgment."
Rick raised a hand. "It was a cool lightning bolt, to be fair."
Strange gave him a hard look. "You shattered part of the Church of the Storm's prophecy network. Their seers are having psychic migraines."
"I said I was sorry!"
"You tossed them a protein bar and walked away."
"Yeah, that's like, international apology level where I'm from."
Loki cleared his throat. "The real issue is this: Rick's unique chaos alignment is turning him into a walking reality node. His bond with the Fool pathway, mixed with that Marvel-level power scaling, makes him... unpredictable."
"I'm not unpredictable," Rick said, offended. "I'm just consistently violent in innovative ways."
Harry sighed. "He's not wrong."
Strange pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look. There's only one way we get ahead of this. We have to teach Rick how to control his connection to the Fool and the pathways he's accidentally drawing into himself."
Loki arched an eyebrow. "You mean... structure?"
Strange nodded. "Ritual. Meditation. Boundaries. Anchor charms. Seals. The whole arcane syllabus."
Rick slowly raised his hand. "Question."
"Yes?"
"What if instead of all that… I get stronger and punch the next problem harder?"
Everyone stared.
Strange rubbed his eyes. "This is going to be worse than the Spider-Man memory fiasco."
Later… in the Sanctum Sanctorum
Strange created a training circle infused with magical bindings, Beyonder symbols, and three wards specifically designed to stop Rick from punching things mid-session.
They did not work.
First exercise: Focus the Fool card without triggering dimensional bleed.
Rick focused.
He immediately summoned an illusory clone of himself, who started making shadow puppets on the wall and quoting Shakespeare while juggling fireballs.
"Technically," Rick said, "this is focus."
Second exercise: Meditative vision-walking into the Fog of Mysteries.
Rick meditated.
He ended up face-to-face with Klein Moretti again, who was drinking tea and watching a Lovecraftian soap opera made entirely out of eyeballs.
"You again," Klein said.
"Me again!" Rick grinned. "Wanna teach me how to do cool tricks without making gods cry?"
Klein looked exhausted. "You've pulled fragments of too many pathways into your soul. Fool, Chaos, Warrior, Red Priest... you're turning into a polytheistic power cocktail."
"That sounds delicious."
"It isn't!" Klein snapped. "You are one bad day from creating your own pathway."
Rick blinked. "Wait... I can do that?"
"No!"
(Beat.)
"…But maybe."
Back at Hogwarts, that night…
Rick stood on the Astronomy Tower again, eyes glowing faintly as ley lines shimmered overhead.
He held the Fool card in one hand and a strange new one he hadn't seen before in the other.
It was blank.
Pure white.
But it pulsed with possibility.
Harry joined him. "You feel it too, huh?"
Rick nodded. "Something's shifting. I'm pulling in powers that don't belong to any known pathway. Like something's watching me from beyond."
Harry took a breath. "You're either going to become a new god…"
"…or a catastrophe with a gym membership," Rick finished.
They stood in silence for a moment longer.
Then Rick turned, cracking his knuckles. "Guess I better prepare."
"For what?"
Rick looked at him and grinned.
"For Chapter 5, obviously."