The Summoning Key was an ancient capsule device created by Nictis in order to house the Soul Stone. Its creation was intended for the stone within to be utilized by mortal beings who normally would not have the power to wield it.
Background[]
Creation[]
Sometime after the Cursed Realm was created, the Soul Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones, was displaced into the realm. Nictis soon discovered the stone, and manipulated the stone to allow souls that were absorbed by it to be brought to the Cursed Realm. As a failsafe plan, Nictis kept the Soul Stone’s original soulworld within the stone as a means of refuge should he escape the Cursed Realm himself. To ensure more souls ended up in the Cursed Realm, Nictis encased the Soul Stone within the Summoning Key, a device that would allow normal mortals to wield the stone’s power. Nictis then sent the Summoning Key out of the Cursed Realm so that it may one day be discovered.
Discovery[]
In 1975 within the Zero Arc universe, the Summoning Key crash-landed in a desert in Eastern California, creating a runic chamber depicting the Summoning Key's origins deep beneath the surface. A quarry was soon established around the crash site in order to locate the artifact, though attempts to locate it were unsuccessful. However, a large stone that was on the surface close to the Summoning Key's impact zone was engraved with the same runes present within the Summoning Key's chamber, which was soon discovered and acquired by archaeologists. Unfortunately, the discovery of the stone fooled many into believing that it was in fact the object that crashed into the desert, leading to the closure of the quarry after a "successful" search.
Despite this, the runes engraved in the stone fascinated Roach many years later, who believed that there was something else other than the runic stone located in the quarry, and soon began extensive research on the runes and their meanings. Eventually, Roach soon learned that the runes told the Summoning Key's origins and its power involving souls, and soon began designing a device that would utilize the soul to traverse time itself with his fellow members of Division One, a subdivision of the Humane Labs research facility.
The Search[]
In 2026, the notorious Unit Fourteen apprehended the former members of Division One, who had traveled to the future through Roach's device and returned to the present. Through brutal interrogations, Unit Fourteen uncover that they would eventually find the Summoning Key after continuing the excavation at the abandoned quarry. To test Division One's credibility, Unit Fourteen begins a new excavation at the abandoned quarry, and soon discovers the Summoning Key as detailed by Division One. Knowing that they were telling the truth, Unit Fourteen continued the interrogations to learn exactly what happens in the future, and begin to stimulate events to await the arrival of the time-traveling selves of Division One, intending for them to successfully learn of the future and return to the past with the intent of changing the future. As detailed in Roach's interrogations, Unit Fourteen stash the Summoning Key away in order for it to end up in the cargo hold of one of their barges near the organization's island facility, Station 11.
Reformed History[]
As anticipated, the time-traveling selves of Division One arrive in the cargo hold of a Unit Fourteen barge in 2031, where Roach is quick to discover the Summoning Key. After meeting with his future self, who was being kept prisoner on Station 11 with deluded memories as a result of Unit Fourteen's work with Element X, Roach formulates a plan to return to their original time in order to rewrite history, oblivious to the fact that they were in the future of their attempt to change history. As part of his plan, Roach needed the souls of each of their future selves, as they were "complete" unlike their current ones, which were "fractured" in order to utilize Roach's device to travel to the future; with the "complete" souls of their future selves, the time-traveling selves of Division One would be able to utilize Roach's device once again in order to return to their own time.
In order to safely extract their future souls, Roach remorsefully tasked his allies with finding and killing their future selves in order to preserve their souls within the Summoning Key. After completing the deed, the time-traveling selves of Division One return to their former research facility, where Roach had stashed a failsafe copy of his device in his secret laboratory. After depositing the Summoning Key into the device, the future souls of Division One are stripped from the artifact and absorbed into the device, thus enabling the time-traveling selves of Division One to use the device to return to their original time; in the process, a cycle in time was created.
A Better Tomorrow[]
Once the time-traveling selves of Division One returned to their original time, a temporal paradox was created due to their unorthodox method of time travel. As a result, the Summoning Key was ejected from the device in the future and sucked into it, transporting the artifact to a paradoxical timeline based off of events in the distant past.
Upon arriving, the Summoning Key ended up in its former chamber in the bottom of the quarry back in 1975, where it was this time discovered by paradoxical versions of four mobsters of the Los Angeles Crime Family, who had become caught up in the madness of the paradox. Being guided by radios created by Roach, the four are tasked with using the Summoning Key to collect a soul of pure darkness, which would be necessary with containing the paradox once and for all. After locating their former Mob Boss, whose soul was deemed to be pure darkness as a result of his heinous crimes as the leader of a crime family, the four kill him and preserve his soul.
After traversing to the future time within their paradoxical timeline, the four locate the Morbid Pillar, an ancient device with the power to seal any rift in the time-space continuum, at the Griffith Observatory. There, the four insert the Summoning Key into the device, which in turn unleashes the soul of their former Mob Boss into the overhead rift. As a result, the rift is sealed off and creates the Fractured Realm, which remained even after history was truly altered. Subsequently, the Summoning Key is destroyed due to the sheer energy unleashed from the Morbid Pillar.
The Cycle Broken[]
However, the cycle would not last forever as Unit Fourteen had hoped, as a survivor group known as Amici, who had learned of Unit Fourteen's plans, detail a report regarding future events to the time-traveling selves of Division One and send it to the junkyard they would one day visit while searching for TJ's future self. Though they constantly failed to discover the report many times, they eventually do find it after collecting TJ's future soul, which begins to derail the cycle. From the report, the time-traveling selves of Division One learn of everything that would truly transpire, and as a result, gain the memories they would have received should they have continued the cycle. Horrified that his plan was exploited by Unit Fourteen, Roach formulates a new plan with his allies to ensure the cycle is permanently broken, which leads them to a Unit Fourteen excavation site in Northern California. There, they learn that Unit Fourteen at the time was attempting to locate a mystical sword known as the Harbinger, rumored to be capable of harnessing great power.
To this end, Division One scourge the excavation site in search of the Harbinger, and successfully locate an underground tunnel containing it. As soon as Roach grabs ahold of the sword however, he begins to become corrupted by the dark powers within the weapon, and begins to hear the voices of the Prophets of the Soulless, who instructs him to purge himself and his allies into darkness, all with the promise of breaking the cycle forever. Heeding their instructions, Roach infuses the Summoning Key into the hilt of the Harbinger, which as a result causes the Summoning Key to turn into a grey eye and lose all resemblance to its original appearance. Roach, now completely consumed by darkness, soon uses the complete Harbinger to remove his soul and the souls of his allies; as a result, their souls are absorbed into the Harbinger, and their bodies fade away into darkness, where they reform as Soulless in Limbo. With the disappearance of Division One, and the restoration of their souls within the Harbinger, the cycle is ultimately broken, foiling Unit Fourteen's plans.
The Greatest Threat of All[]
While the Summoning Key itself is never utilized again as its own entity, its importance is soon shined upon by Ataraxia, who sought to assemble the six Infinity Stones for his plans. After tasking Xarcoh and Omnitron with recovering the Soul Stone from within the Summoning Key, Xarcoh revealed to Ataraxia of the Summoning Key's fate as a fixture of the Harbinger. Knowing the Summoning Key couldn't be removed by normal means, Ataraxia explained that in order to remove the Summoning Key in its current state, they would have to travel to a mystical cavern within the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, explaining that there was a mystical presence there that would enable him to remove the Summoning Key in order to collect the Soul Stone.
A few days later, Xarcoh and Omnitron arrived in Hawaii and located the cavern. While Omnitron stood guard in order to defend against the newly assembled United Heroes who would eventually catch onto their plans, Xarcoh would reach the end of the cavern, which housed an ancient ritual site. Summoning the Harbinger, Xarcoh would recite an incantation found on the walls in order to harness the cavern's magic. With the newfound magic, Xarcoh began the process of removing the Summoning Key. During the process however, he was interrupted by the arrival of Jack McMack, Tyler Jackson, and Alex Miller, who were able to temporarily disable Omnitron with an advanced EMP grenade from the Eclipse Universe.
When the trio questioned him on his intentions, Xarcoh explained that the Harbinger was the literal key in unlocking the Soul Stone from its containment unit, saying that the stone had been with the heroes since the very beginning of their journey. Xarcoh was then able to complete the ritual, managing to separate the Summoning Key from the Harbinger's hilt and causing it to revert to its original appearance. Xarcoh continued, explaining that the Summoning Key was what housed the Soul Stone, which enabled the artifact its powers. To prove his point, Xarcoh used his own powers to crush the Summoning Key into pieces, revealing the orange Soul Stone within it.
Capabilities[]
As the containment vessel for the Soul Stone, the Summoning Key was capable of allowing its wielder to safely utilize the powers of the Soul Stone within it. Through the Soul Stone, the Summoning Key was capable of absorbing and preserving souls within itself, though this could only be done shortly after a soul has been released from its host through death. The Summoning Key is also capable of using souls contained within itself to generate a unique form of energy, which was the inspiration for Roach's time machine.
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