Chapter 12: Echoes in Peace
Location: The Mirror Courtyard, outside the Crystal Sanctum
The skies were quiet.
No sirens. No portals. No cries for help. For five years, Earth ∞ had known peace. Children knew sunlight, not shadow. Cities hummed with clean energy. People no longer feared gods — for one lived among them.
Yet the mystics had watched the cracks.
---
Stephen Strange (Earth-616) stood beneath the spiraling columns of the Crystal Sanctum, fingers wrapped in spell-runes glowing with sapphire light. His coat had faded from crimson to a softer tone of wine-red, regal and calm.
Beside him, Serena Strange (Earth-19999) — no longer just his counterpart — touched his wrist, her smile crooked.
> "Are you ready, beloved?"
> "I think we always knew she wouldn't stay idle," Stephen replied.
> "No one like her ever does."
---
With twin gestures, they summoned the portal:
A glyph-ring opened above the sanctum — and from it descended the emerald mist of sovereignty.
Zafira bint Hakib — The Empress Doom — emerged slowly, majestic and composed. Her armor had evolved: a flowing green-and-white ensemble inscribed with both circuitry and spellscript. No crown — just presence.
Her eyes locked onto the Strange couple, unreadable.
> "You called for me."
Serena stepped forward, bowing only slightly — out of respect, not submission.
> "We wish to speak. About the cost of what you've created."
> "The price of peace?" Zafira said quietly.
Stephen raised a glowing orb — filled with reflections from the shattered multiverse.
Realities frozen in eternal stasis.
Timelines that looped endlessly, never able to progress.
Variant survivors who whispered in dreamscapes, unable to wake.
Worlds that were sacrificed… in her name.
> "Zafira," Serena said, "You've brought peace. Yes. But at what cost?"
Zafira's gaze never shifted. But a flicker crossed her lips.
> "Would you rather I left it undone?"
> "No," Stephen admitted. "But if this peace demands eternal stasis, then it's not peace. It's sedation."
The three stood in silence, surrounded by stars above and flowers below.
Then Zafira turned away, her voice barely audible.
> "Five years I've watched this world thrive. And still, I remain the villain in the eyes of everyone."
Serena walked up to her — close now — placing her hand gently on Zafira's.
> "You're not a villain. You're just… A Queen who forgot her humanity."
Zafira's eyes widened slightly.
> "Remind me, then," she whispered.
---
Final shot:
The three walk slowly into the sanctum — god, sorceress, and sorcerer — shadows long behind them.
From above, reality itself watches. Fractures still exist.
The Peace Era continues. But the question of cost hangs in the cosmos.
And somewhere… a new voice whispers… what comes after Doom?
---
To be continued…