novelraw Chapter 499
Chapter 499
"It was Deadpool and the Time Variance Authority."
After replaying the surveillance footage twice, Rowan Mercer finally spoke.
The man in the red suit with twin swords was unmistakable.
Deadpool.
And the operatives in strange uniforms who opened glowing portals could only belong to one organization.
The Time Variance Authority.
The TVA was a trans-temporal organization tasked with monitoring and regulating timelines across the multiverse.
Calling them terrifying wouldn’t be wrong.
With a single device, they could erase an entire universe from existence.
Even beings on a multiversal scale couldn’t casually destroy a reality that cleanly.
But calling them weak wouldn’t be wrong either.
Most TVA agents were just ordinary people.
No superpowers.
No magic.
They relied entirely on advanced technology.
Strip away their gear, and they were no more dangerous than security guards.
They were like a civilian holding a nuclear launch button.
Helpless in a fistfight.
Godlike if they pressed the right switch.
The TVA had originally been created by He Who Remains, a future variant of Kang.
After inventing time travel and triggering a multiversal war between infinite versions of himself, he founded the TVA to preserve a single "Sacred Timeline."
Later, a variant Loki overthrew him and became the so-called God of Stories.
From that point on, branching timelines were no longer pruned.
The TVA’s mission shifted to monitoring dangerous temporal interference.
And one of their recurring problems was Deadpool.
Wade Wilson was a mutant whose life diverged wildly across timelines.
In one reality, he’d been Wolverine’s teammate, later captured and altered by General Stryker, then decapitated in battle.
In another, he’d become a mercenary, fallen in love, developed cancer, undergone illegal experiments, gained a healing factor rivaling Wolverine’s, lost his looks, taken revenge, lost his lover again, then used a time device to rewrite history.
That last part had put him squarely on the TVA’s radar.
Rowan folded his arms.
"So he came here to recruit Logan as an anchor being."
According to TVA doctrine, every timeline had a stabilizing individual.
If that anchor died, the universe would slowly collapse over the next several thousand years.
In Deadpool’s native timeline, that anchor had been Wolverine.
And Wolverine was dead.
A TVA officer named Paradox had tried to erase Deadpool’s universe outright.
Deadpool stole a time-jumping device and began hopping realities, searching for a suitable Wolverine to replace the lost anchor.
This universe had been his latest stop.
He’d found Logan resting in his room at the academy.
Then the TVA caught up.
The fight broke out.
And now Logan was gone.
Rowan exhaled slowly.
"So either he’s in TVA custody... or he’s been dumped into the Void."
Either way, Rowan wasn’t leaving his friend there.
And he was very interested in TVA tech.
Devices that could traverse timelines and universes weren’t something he could build yet.
He crouched beside one of the fallen agents.
"Nekromancy. Manifest."
Green sigils flared across the corpse’s forehead.
Moments later, the dead man’s eyes opened, glassy and unfocused.
Rowan had learned this spell from the Book of the Dead in another world.
It recalled a departed soul into its original body and bound it temporarily.
In the Marvel universe, souls didn’t reincarnate.
They went to afterlives governed by cosmic entities.
Which meant TVA agents were fair game.
Rowan doubted Death itself would notice or care about one borrowed soul.
And even if it did, it wasn’t likely to pick a fight with him over a nobody.
Rowan placed two fingers against the revenant’s temple.
"Show me what you remember."
Images flooded his mind.
Portals.
The TVA.
The Void.
Logan.
A moment later, Rowan released the spell.
The corpse went limp again.
He turned to Professor Xavier and the assembled staff.
"I know where Logan is. I’ll bring him back."
Relief rippled through the room.
"Classes continue as normal," Rowan added calmly. "Have someone cover Logan’s lectures. If everything goes smoothly, he’ll be back by this afternoon."
He straightened.
"Deadpool just picked the wrong universe."