Oscorp — R&D Laboratory
Two weeks had passed since the Quantum Realm incident. Nolan had handed the Multiversal Traversal Machine to Reed Richards for teardown and study.
Reed had already been exploring similar designs; now, with a working sample from a parallel Reed, he was confident.
"Give me half a year," Reed had said. "I can finish it."
Nolan wasn't in a hurry. Before pushing deeper into the multiverse, he wanted every advantage.
Their universe was, comparatively, one of the weaker ones. Run into the wrong universe on the wrong day, and even legends die like mortals.
So Nolan activated the next phase of his "Pantheon Program." With Bast's cooperation and what he'd learned from studying Asgardian physiology, he had finally completed the core of his mana-source research a way to anchor a personal wellspring of power and cast through it with precision.
Today, he would establish the first practitioner of his new discipline.
He looked across the lab bench. "Do you remember everything I told you?"
Susan Storm nodded. She hadn't expected to be the first student of a new branch of magic, but Nolan insisted she was ideal: her native psionic field control (force constructs/invisibility) synced perfectly with the discipline he called Psionic Sorcery.
"Good," Nolan said. "Let's begin."
Susan uncapped a vial and drank: a carefully regulated gene-therapy microdose modeled on her own psionic markers, paired with a purified extract derived from the heart-shaped herb formulated not to overwrite her biology, but to tune it for stable contact with what Nolan termed the Psionic Plane (an interface within the Astral).
She closed her eyes and followed the casting sequence Nolan had drilled into her measured breath, focus sigils traced with precise handwork, and a quiet invocation that served as a mnemonic for shaping intent rather than a crutch.
Nolan waited. The first trials were about patience and calibration.
A whisper brushed his mind clear as a bell:
"I entreat the Lord of Psionics, source of the wellspring, arbiter of mind-born force. Psionic Shaping manifests."
A filament of awareness snapped taut between teacher and student. Nolan felt the link form subtly, consent-based, and easily severed, and let his will click into alignment.
Susan's eyes opened. In her sightline hung a massive psionic cone, a translucent construct honed to a spearhead of force.
With a thought, it could slam forward and grind through armored targets clean geometry, stable lattice, no delta-spike volatility.
She blinked at it, amazed. She'd never been able to sculpt this configuration with her native ability alone. But through the wellspring, the shape held effortlessly. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novel⁂fire.net
Nolan smiled. "Excellent. That's a clean success."
The result confirmed his thesis: powered individuals learn faster, and when their innate gifts align with the magical channel, the effect compounds. If this held, Max Dillon could study Electromancy keyed to his bioelectric field; Flint Marko could anchor Terramancy to his silicate morphology. Discipline would convert raw power into reliable tools.
Nolan noted the persistent, opt-in tether between their minds no hidden cost, no siphon. He'd designed it that way; these were his people, not bargaining chips. For general rollouts later, he could require an offering or pact, but for his core team, trust came first.
Susan exhaled, steady but shaken by the scale of it. "Permission to… get back to work?"
Nolan's tone softened. "One more thing. Interested in founding a school?"
She stared. "Founding… what?"
"A formal order dedicated to Psionic Sorcery," Nolan said. "Kamar-Taj tends the traditional arcane lines. This would be a different structure, structured around psionic constructs, cognition, and force geometry. I'd like you to serve as its First Preceptor."
Susan hesitated, then nodded. "Tell me what you need."
"Logistics will follow," Nolan said. "For now—well done."
Susan slipped out, still processing. The door whisked open again and Wanda Maximoff strode in, eyes narrowing.
"You and Susan were in here a while," she teased. "Tell me this wasn't an 'HR violation.'"
Nolan arched a brow. "I told you I was formalizing the psionic line. It worked."
Since Pietro's return, Wanda's spirit had brightened, and her magic had surged. With the right catalyst, Nolan suspected she could break into skyfather-tier one of the universe's worst-kept secrets: when chaos magic meets inheritance, ceilings shatter.
"I want in," Wanda said.
"You'll be fine," Nolan replied, passing her the casting sequence and invocation Susan had used.
Wanda glanced at the notes once. A razor-edged psionic cone bloomed in her hand—stabilized, amplified, and laced with the red undertone of Chaos Magic.
Nolan blinked. "You just… bypassed the wellspring handshake."
Wanda smirked. "Chaos doesn't ask for keys."
Of course. Chaos Magic bridges disciplines the way lightning bridges clouds—directly, indifferently, irresistibly. It explained how she could speak so many "dialects" of power without ritual substitution.
Nolan chuckled under his breath. "Noted. Add Psionic Sorcery to your repertoire."
He turned back to the console, bringing up a holoslate labeled PANTHEON//PSION. One wellspring anchored. One Preceptor appointed. A curriculum to write. By the time Reed finished the Traversal rebuild, they wouldn't just be multiverse-ready they'd be multiverse-capable.
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