The cold wind of the icy plains whipped past as the Ancient One disappeared through her portal, leaving Eric alone with the lingering scent of green tea and the soft crackle of blue flames flickering around his body.
He stood still for a moment, letting the silence wash over him. So much had happened in so little time. The invasion, the emergence of his powers, the confrontation with the nuke, and now a personal audience with the most enigmatic sorcerer on Earth. It was overwhelming.
Yet... he felt calm.
With a slow exhale, blue flames gently wrapped around his body, and in a flash, he vanished from the icy landscape.
The moment Eric re-entered his personal dimension, it was like walking into a dreamscape born of power and memory.
Stretching endlessly in all directions, a vast, barren landscape shimmered with ethereal blue fire. Obsidian-black terrain cracked with glowing lines of azure heat, like molten veins channeling raw elemental energy. Pillars of flame spiraled skyward in slow, elegant dances, casting flickering shadows that writhed like living things.
The air was heavy—but not oppressive. It pulsed with life. Magic. Elemental will.
And at the center of it all, rising from a wide circular platform surrounded by concentric runes of glowing fire, stood a lone throne.
It was carved of blackened stone, scorched and fractured by the intensity of the surrounding energy. Blue fire flickered gently from its armrests, and the back of the throne was tall—towering above him like a monument to power itself. The very air around it shimmered with heat and authority.
Eric stepped toward it slowly, reverently.
He didn't know why, but the sight of the throne stirred something deep in his soul. It called to him—not just as a place to sit, but as something far more. A symbol. A nexus.
When he reached it, he ran a hand across the stone. It was warm. Not scalding, not dangerous—just... alive. Like it was waiting for him. Expecting him.
With a breath, Eric sat.
The world exploded.
It wasn't pain—though it came close. It was expansion.
His mind, once contained to human limitations, was stretched far beyond its former borders. He gasped as knowledge—ancient, foreign, yet somehow familiar—poured into him like a river crashing through a broken dam.
He wasn't just Eric Bishop, the orphaned PhD with three lives' worth of memories.
He was something more.
His vision faded to white, and then into fire. Endless, infinite fire.
Images danced in the flames—empires reduced to ash, stars igniting in blue infernos, dragons of fire coiling through otherworldly skies, beings of pure flame kneeling in reverence before a throne identical to his. His throne.
The flames whispered truths:
You are fire made sovereign.You are the source and master.You are the Sovereign of Flame.You are the one who commands.Not a wielder of fire—its origin.Not a servant to power—but its embodiment.
Eric gripped the armrests of the throne, trying to anchor himself as the knowledge poured into him.
He understood now.
The flames were not tools. They were not borrowed or controlled. They were his. They were him.
This wasn't just a personal dimension—it was his domain. A dimension created by, sustained through, and ruled by his essence. It was not bound to time. It existed outside of normal space. The moment he sat on the throne, he became one with it.
He could feel every flicker of heat within this realm. Every mote of fire danced to his will. The great sword at his side flared in response, recognizing him now not as a master—but as its creator.
He looked down at his hands.
They blazed with blue flame—not just energy, but intention. He could mold the fire into anything, alter it down to its atomic core. It could burn, freeze, heal, or create. This wasn't mere pyrokinesis. It was elemental sovereignty.
A ripple moved through the landscape. The dimension responded to him now. Not passively, but actively. As if awaiting orders.
Eric rose slowly from the throne.
His armor remained—sleek, black, alive with fire. His cape flowed with ember trails. But his eyes… now burned brighter than ever. No longer simple vessels of human vision, but windows into an elemental truth.
He raised a hand, and the sky above obeyed. Blue lightning roared across the flaming clouds, and the ground trembled in awe.
He was a force of nature now.
A thought crossed his mind—and the fire answered.
In a swirl of flame, a circular balcony of stone and light rose around the throne. Floating platforms formed from the heat itself, bridging canyons and gaps that had not existed moments before. Walls emerged in fractal patterns of glowing script—living architecture that shaped itself according to his mind.
It was more than a throne now. It was a fortress.
A citadel at the heart of fire.
"This… is mine," he murmured, voice deepened with energy.
He turned slowly and sat back down, the throne now more comfortable than before—like it had molded itself to suit him.
He leaned back, gazing at the flaming horizon, feeling a sense of stillness for the first time since his awakening.
And then… he heard the whisper again. A voice—not external, but internal.
"You are no longer a visitor.You are the sovereign.The last of flame-born.The keeper of balance."
He remembered the Ancient One's words: "How can you be here without a medium?"
Now he understood.
He wasn't anchored to this reality through the usual means. He didn't need a physical tether. He was a living dimensional constant. His very presence reshaped the rules.
It explained why her visions were blocked. Why Cerebro could not find him. Why Hydra, Magneto, and others couldn't track him properly. They were searching for something that wasn't entirely there. He existed on multiple planes at once. Physical and metaphysical. Real and abstract.
A single word echoed in his mind: Sovereign.
He didn't need validation.
He didn't need recognition.
He was.
Hours passed—or maybe only seconds. Time in his dimension was irrelevant. Eventually, he stood again and gazed into the horizon. A thought brought up a mirror-like pool of fire in midair, reflecting Earth from above.
New York. Stark Tower. The aftermath of the invasion still lingered.
But something else caught his attention.
A ripple. A disturbance in the fabric of space—near Wakanda.
Eric narrowed his eyes. He focused—and the image zoomed in. A man in a dark suit stood in front of a glowing crater. Next to him, a young boy in red and black body armor with panther motifs was kneeling, his eyes wide.
Eric sensed it. The same energy he once felt when he was Ronnie Raymond—raw, atomic fire trying to form.
Another like him? No, not the same… but similar. A fragment of power. Untamed. Dormant.
He considered intervening, but stopped. It wasn't time.
Instead, he looked to another location. Westchester. The X-Mansion.
Jean Grey sat alone in a greenhouse, her fingers trembling over a flower that bloomed with unnatural heat. Her power—latent but stirring—was whispering to her.
And then, to his surprise, her gaze lifted toward the sky—directly at him, as if she could sense the watching presence.
Eric stepped back from the image.
No... not yet.
He wasn't ready to deal with that power. Or the Phoenix Force hidden beneath it.
Another shift in the mirror.
A bunker in Eastern Europe.
A girl with glowing red hands training beside a silent boy with silver streaks in his hair.
Both... unawakened. But the spark was there.
He waved a hand and let the portal close.
They would come to him in time. Or the world would bring them to him.
For now, he would build.
From the throne's platform, a staircase of flame spiraled downward to a grand hall that hadn't existed before. Eric descended slowly, creating as he walked. Statues of fire guardians lined the walls, and symbols of his previous lives—Ronnie's Firestorm matrix, Dabi's charred blue coat, Ace's tattoo—merged into the design as ornamental tributes, not identities.
They were parts of him. But they no longer defined him.
At the base of the staircase, a new chamber awaited. A forge of living flame.
He stepped inside and extended his arm. The great sword from earlier appeared in his grasp. But now, it felt incomplete.
He held it forward, and it broke apart into floating pieces. Flame surged through the chamber, reshaping metal, condensing atoms, forging something greater.
When the flames dimmed, a new weapon floated before him: a blue fire glaive, long and elegant, with dual forms—sword and polearm. A perfect extension of his will.
He reached out and took it, and the entire dimension pulsed once.
This was his command.
His rule.
His flame.
Eric stood alone in the center of the forge, weapon in hand, blue flames wrapping around his cape like living wings.
He knew the challenges ahead. SHIELD would watch him. The Avengers would question him. Mutants would be wary. Hydra would try to recruit or destroy him. Sorcerers would study him. Celestials might even observe.
But none of it mattered.
Because now… he understood.
He wasn't just a protector.
He wasn't just a being with power.
He was a sovereign of fire.
The first—and only—of his kind.
And should anyone threaten Earth, its people, or the balance of the multiverse...
They would learn what it meant to face the Sovereign of Flame.