[ BTM ] Prologue: Gods Debate, Mortals Fight
There was no sky here.
No ground.
No gravity. No time. No sense of before or after.
Only a thought. Only judgment.
In the midst of that infinite stillness floated a group of Celestialsapiens—silent, monolithic, each from a humanoid silhouette of obsidian threaded with stars. They drifted in the mental plane of their kind, a realm where thought replaced action and will replaced matter.
They did not speak aloud. Their discourse was timeless, echoing in pulses of reason and cosmic logic. Galaxies of thought collided, twisted, and reformed—a storm of eternal deliberation.
And standing in the center of them, laughably out of place, was the Old Man.
He wore a cozy knitted cardigan. Round spectacles rested on the bridge of his nose. A white mustache curled over a mischievous, knowing smile. He looked less like a god and more like someone's kindly grandfather. Yet the weight of his presence pressed down like the tip of a cosmic pen, poised above parchment—reality itself waiting for what he might write.
" you can't change Spider-Man, and don't even think about removing Iron Man. the Old Man said with a calm reproach, hands tucked behind his back,
He glanced toward the silent Celestialsapiens.
But none of the Celestialsapiens responded to him. Their gazes remained fixed, eternal and unreadable.
"You are changing things too fast. This story—this universe—needs space to breathe."
The Old Man sighed and lifted a hand. Threads of golden metaphysical energy wove through the air, lines of code in a language only authors could comprehend. They shaped themselves into a construct—not physical, but narrative.
A seal.
A lock.
A command encoded in the very syntax of storytelling.
One of the Celestialsapiens blinked.
"You know this can't hold us," one of them intoned. Their voice echoed with cosmic patience, layered and vast—the thoughts of multiple wills unified in contemplation.
The Old Man merely smiled. "But I'm not locking you in."
He flicked his fingers. The lock snapped shut—not physically, but narratively. An event sealed by consensus of the cosmos.
"I'm locking you out."
The Celestialsapiens remained motionless. They did not resist. Not because they couldn't, but because they started a new debate.
The Old Man gave a final nod, as if tipping his hat to forces that had already begun shifting beyond his reach. He turned toward the edge of the void and looked out upon the distant stars—a thousand trillion possibilities beyond the sealed dimension.
"I saved this universe," he muttered, almost wistfully. "Maybe now I'll finally get my own movie."
With that, the Old Man vanished. And the Celestialsapiens—beings capable of rewriting the very fabric of reality—remained still, contemplative.
Beyond that sealed place, conflict ignited once again.
A moon cracked under the force of the blow.
Two figures tore through the debris of a shattered alien base, orbiting a dead planet on the far edge of neutral space. No law, no rescue, just wreckage and silence.
One figure blazed like a living sun. The other moved with heavy, relentless purpose—like a weapon with a grudge.
Captain Marvel spun midair, blood at the corner of her mouth as she ducked a strike from a metal-tipped tentacle.
Her binary form pulsed. Light danced across her skin, unstable but still deadly.
Facing her, standing on a chunk of broken hull, was a creature straight out of a Galactic database:
Vilgax.
Ten feet tall. Green skin. Armor cracked from a hundred battles. His breathing mask hissed faintly as he stared her down—and one of his tentacles sparked where his arm used to be.
But he didn't flinch.
"I am Vilgax!" he bellowed, his voice somehow thundering across the vacuum. "Conqueror of Ten Planets! Champion of Wars! I shattered the champions of Khoros, and now I will let you watch galaxies burn in my name!"
Carol wiped her lip. "Still talking with one arm? Impressive."
Vilgax laughed—a low, metallic rumble. The injury didn't bother him. If anything, it just made him look more dangerous.
They launched at each other again, colliding in a flash of energy that rippled through the floating ruins. Metal shattered. Broken panels spiraled into space.
Carol fired a focused energy blast—he deflected it with a gauntlet and countered, slamming her into a twisted support beam.
She righted herself midair, systems flaring red.
He wasn't just strong. He was smart.
Disciplined.
He fought like someone who'd trained to take down people like her.
Then she noticed it.
Above them, scattered devices floated among the wreckage—small, dome-shaped, blinking to life one by one.
Old combat drones.
Carol's HUD lit up in warning.
Power signatures climbing.
Targeting systems locking on.
Vilgax said nothing. He just watched her.
"You were stalling," she muttered.
Hidden blasters unfolded from the old defense units. Energy cells lit up blue.
"...You sneaky, one-armed space tyrant."
The sky lit up.
Turrets fired from all sides—crossfire slicing through the void. Vilgax tapped a device on his belt and vanished in a flash of green light, warping out just before the beams converged.
Carol darted between the shots, blasting back and dodging hard. Her mind raced.
This wasn't some loud-mouthed space thug. He was planning ahead. Coordinating. Targeting.
And she'd underestimated him.
Back in the locked dimension, the Celestialsapiens hovered in silence.
They were still. Not because they were trapped—but because they were debating.
Whether to break the lock. Whether to leave. Whether to nap, even though they had no need for rest.
For them, everything was thought. Everything was an argument.
And as long as they were talking...
Nothing would change.
At least for now.
( What do you think about this idea? )