"Vibranium… m***********r. This guy's body has turned into Vibranium!"
Inside the Ironheart Armor, Dr. Zola, now existing as an artificial intelligence, was terrified. If not for the restrictive programming in his consciousness, Zola would have already transferred himself elsewhere to escape.
"F***! Was this Allens' plan all along? From the beginning, he intended to absorb my Vibranium shield?"
Rogers' eyes flashed with shock as he looked down. At the point where Allens had made contact, there was only the faintest of gaps—tiny, even smaller than an ant. But Rogers knew: Allens had successfully absorbed his shield.
Just once was enough. Allens' body structure was already transforming into Vibranium. After all, with the ability of the Absorbing Man, Carl Creel, even a single touch allowed his body to take on the properties of the substance.
"Come on, Grandpa Rogers—show me what your Ironheart armor can really do."
Allens waved him forward. His figure was tall and imposing, chest broad, muscles bulging with explosive strength like a perfected super-soldier. His silver-white skin reflected the sunlight, making him appear majestic and terrifying.
"Shit. Zola, fire everything we've got!"
Rogers cursed under his breath and gave the order.
Click! Clack! Click!
The weapon systems across the steel armor roared to life. Laser cannons, missiles, bullets, and grenades poured down on Allens in a storm of destruction.
BOOM!
A mushroom cloud rose into the sky. The blast's heat melted the ground into crystalline shards. But when the flames cleared, Allens still stood, his Vibranium body gleaming silver-white. The explosion hadn't even scratched him.
"The properties of Vibranium… make me indestructible."
Allens strode out of the inferno, eyes blazing. In the blink of an eye, his body blurred through the air, instantly appearing before Rogers. With his Vibranium form, air resistance was meaningless.
Rogers braced, shield in hand.
BOOM!
Vibranium met Vibranium. Allens' fist slammed against Rogers' shield, releasing a terrifying wave of kinetic energy that blasted the rubble around them into dust.
Allens raised his other fist and uppercut the chin of the Ironheart helmet. The sheer force, amplified by Vibranium, sent Rogers flying backward into a ruined building.
CRASH! Smoke and debris erupted.
Then—ZAAAP! A red energy beam shot through the smoke, striking Allens square in the chest. But the Vibranium body didn't even dent.
Da-da-da-da!
Rogers unleashed another volley, but Allens advanced step by step through the storm of fire. The previous hit had cracked the visor of Rogers' armor, exposing his weathered face.
"Allens… you've grown again," Rogers said, his voice steady, his eyes as firm as ever. Steve Rogers' greatest strength was never just his body, but his unbreakable will.
"Thanks to you, Captain Rogers—future Rogers," Allens replied coldly. "If I hadn't met you, I'd probably still be waiting for fate to unfold step by step. Even if I survived the great battles to come, my power would never have grown this fast."
From the moment he learned that an older Rogers had returned from the future, Allens abandoned hesitation and kindness. To gain strength quickly, he had even set himself against the Avengers.
"I still don't understand… why?" Rogers stood from the rubble, his armor battered and missing its visor, now resembling his old Captain America uniform more than advanced tech. His aged eyes were steady, yet filled with doubt.
"An interesting question," Allens said with a cold smile. "Your time travel relies on quantum theory. But quantum theory has a particularly strange paradox—Schrödinger's cat."
Rogers' expression shifted. He knew the concept. He had discussed it with Tony Stark during the final battle.
"You put a cat in a sealed box with a radioactive atom. If the atom decays, the trap opens and kills the cat. If it doesn't, the cat lives. But until the box is opened, the cat is both alive and dead—existing in a superposition of states."
Allens' eyes gleamed as he advanced.
"Before you traveled back, the past was fixed. But once you traveled… it became like Schrödinger's cat—superimposed, uncertain. The past might stay the same… or it might decay into something else entirely. That's what causes time diversions. So tell me, Captain… will a new branch happen here? Will we be cast into a different future universe altogether?"
Rogers frowned, struggling to follow the logic. He was a soldier, not a physicist.
"The odds are one in ten million," Allens continued. "But unless I become invincible, I'll never find the true timeline. I'd be lost forever in endless diversions until the end of everything."
Allens' eyes locked on Rogers—the Captain America who had once returned the Infinity Stones, but who had stayed behind in this old branch of time. His words made Rogers' pupils contract.
As Allens said, Rogers had spent his whole life treading carefully, step by step since World War II, trying not to cause time diversions. Even after the war against Thanos, he remained cautious—searching desperately for the true mainline of history.
Now, both he and Allens were like cats in the box. Both searching for the real future.
But one chose caution—protecting the past at all costs.
And the other chose power—seeking to dominate fate itself.
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