Kingo picked his way aimlessly through the common area of the compound’s main building, looking around at the almost surprisingly ordinary surroundings. “You know, I always thought the Avengers’ place would be more ‘Justice League Watchtower’. You’ve got Iron Man bankrolling the team, after all. I thought it’d be all sci-fi metal and high tech,” he said reflectively, stopping by a bookshelf at the side of the lounge area and casting a brief eye over the selection of titles. “This is just… meeting rooms and media centres and couches and stuff. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s kind of cozy, even. Just doesn’t really scream ‘world-protecting superhero team’ to me.”
“They’re just people,” Sersi murmured, almost too quietly to hear. She’d pulled one of the open-plan meeting room’s chairs back against the wall, away from the conference table, and was slowly turning one of Wanda Maximoff’s super-metal spears over and over again in her hands. Her expression was distant, like she was mentally far away from here.
Ikaris was standing at the tattered edge of the room, where windows had once looked out at the rest of the battle-torn compound. His eye beams had neatly carved off a chunk of the building during the earlier battle, opening the space fully to the air. He turned and looked back at the others, his jaw set. “We should be going after them, not giving them time to regroup.”
“What, so you can stab Gilgamesh, too?” Kingo snapped back, surprising even himself a little with how forceful his tone suddenly was. He hadn’t seen exactly what had happened, but it had apparently been bad enough that it had left the rest of the group in a little bit of shock, afterward.
“I warned her.” Though Ikaris’s face remained set in a stubborn expression, his tone had softened slightly. “I told her this would happen.”
“It doesn’t matter what you told her,” Kingo half-shouted back at him, tight anger in his chest. Part of him just wanted to grab the man by the shoulders and shake him until he saw sense. “Thena’s family. You don’t hurt your family!”
“She turned her back on us!”
“Thena’s fine. She’ll be fine,” Sprite said, though it sounded a little bit more like she was trying to convince herself than anyone else. She was sitting on the ground near Ikaris, her knees hugged to her chest. “Gil wouldn’t have let the sorcerers take her away if she were that badly hurt. Even with everything, they know that Ajak would have healed her.”
“And probably erased her memories. Don’t forget that,” Druig interjected unhelpfully. Sprite just glared back at him. The mind controller was sitting at the conference table with his feet up on the wooden surface, crossed at the ankles, like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Enough.” The single-word command from Ajak cut through the argument. She sounded tired.
Kingo let his eyes drop and took a deep breath. It didn’t really help, though, conflicting emotions still roiling in his chest. On the one hand, he completely understood Thena and Gilgamesh’s desire to fight for the planet. They’d protected humanity for so long, it almost didn’t feel like it made any sense to do anything else. Besides, Earth was where he kept his stuff.
On the other hand, Ajak and Ikaris were simply right, on a much more basic and fundamental level. The Emergence was the fulcrum of the primordial cycle of creation and destruction, something embedded into the very fabric of the universe. Earth wouldn’t even have existed in the first place if not for the sacrifices of worlds in previous cycles.
“Kingo, it was a fight,” Ajak said to him. “Thena wasn’t backing down, and she gave Ikaris little choice. Ikaris, reacting without thinking is what got us into this mess. This was not what I wanted to have happen. We need to stop and reassess. Plan a better approach.”
“You heard them, Ajak,” Ikaris said insistently. “They’re not going to listen. We need to be more decisive.”
There was a flicker of movement as Makkari drew their attention. It’s not just Thena and Gilgamesh, though, she signed. The Avengers were one thing, but Merlin’s successor and her disciples are involved now. Things have gotten completely out of hand.
Ajak nodded. “We know where they are. We’ll reach out to Kamar-taj, try to speak to them on neutral ground.”
“Wanda Maximoff was right about one thing,” Ikaris said. “We’re long past that. There’s nothing left to talk about.”
“They’re family, boss,” Kingo responded, his voice threatening to break. “We can’t just…”
“Speaking of family,” Druig said almost lazily. He was leaning back, his hands tucked behind his head. “I was rather touched when you intervened to save me earlier, Ikaris. I didn’t know you cared.”
Ikaris glared at the mind controller for a moment before turning pointedly back to the others. “The Sorcerer Supreme doesn’t usually ally herself with nonmagical authorities,” he said. “Something’s changed.”
Sprite stood up, brushing some dust from her cape with the back of her hand. “She looked better with hair.”
“Yeah.” Despite himself, a small smile tugged at the corner of Kingo’s lips. “…God, do you remember Merlin? What a jackass.”
“How is she even still alive?” Sprite asked. “Even Merlin only managed six hundred years or so. She’d be, what, fifteen hundred by now? That’s crazy by human standards.”
“Mortals can accomplish great things with magic,” Ajak noted. “An extended lifespan is the least of what sorcery is capable of. I’ve seen workings of incredible power in my time. Which is yet another reason we must arm ourselves with knowledge. Phastos?”
“Mmhmm,” Phastos responded absently. He was standing apart from the others, ringed fingers gesturing as he interacted with an interface of shifting metal and golden energy that he’d assembled in the corner of the room as a temporary workstation. “Their security’s impressive. The virtual intelligence almost managed to wipe the local data servers to stop me from getting in before I managed to lock it out and isolate the compound from the Stark Industries network. We’ve got access to most of their files, but I still haven’t cracked everything.”
“Have you found their information on us and the Emergence?” Ajak asked. “Thena said the Avengers already knew about Tiamut when they approached them, but it’s still not clear what they know and how they know it. If they discovered it independently, there’s a risk that others could as well.”
“There are files on each of us, but the information’s pretty limited in most cases. Let’s see… Thena and Gilgamesh, you, Sprite. Ikaris has the highest threat level assigned to him, of course. They’ve got some broad descriptions of our capabilities, but it’s strange—there’s also some really oddly specific notes. Makkari, Sersi, me…” Phastos trailed off, his forehead creasing as his eyes scanned the golden lines of information.
“Phastos?” Ajak gently prompted him after a few moments passed in silence.
“It’s nothing,” he said quickly, flicking his hand to bring up the next dataset. There was an odd inflection in his voice that Kingo couldn’t quite identify. “Kingo’s file is the largest, but that’s because it’s supplemented by a bunch of research on his public personas over the years.”
“And the Emergence?” Ikaris asked. He had moved from his place at the edge of the room, walking over to stand by Phastos’s shoulder as he worked.
Phastos gestured again and a recording of Wanda Maximoff’s voice began playing. “A nascent Celestial is seeded inside and life is cultivated on the world. I’m not clear on the how or why, but they’re nourished by the proliferation and advancement of intelligent life. Once they reach maturity inside the planet’s interior, they burst out… The resident civilisation typically doesn’t survive the process.”
“Wanda Maximoff is their source?” Druig mused. “Well, isn’t that interesting?”
“How?” Ikaris asked. He was glowering at the display like he wanted to reach through it and throttle the woman.
“There’s a lot of references to her having visions of the future,” Phastos answered, flicking his fingers again as he rapidly scrolled through page after page of data.
“She’s a very powerful witch. Stronger than any other I’ve heard of,” Sersi noted, standing up. Taking a couple of steps forward, she gently laid the spear she’d been holding on the conference table. “Though she didn’t really strike me as a diviner. Not like any I’ve met in the past, at least. They tend to be less… bold.”
“I’d have guessed fire sign,” Kingo said. “Protection witch. She managed to block me and Ikaris. Pretty impressive stuff.”
Ikaris shot him an annoyed look, but didn’t say anything.
Phastos grunted. “Even with the references to visions, none of what I’m seeing matches up with the sort of portents and prophecies I’d normally expect from divination. Though it does look like the Avengers have been picking her statements to pieces, trying to get every spare scrap out of them. That’s par for the course, at least. You remember what it was like at Delphi.”
“What are they planning?” Ikaris asked. “They’re obviously trying to stop the Emergence.”
“It looks like we caught them pretty early. They’ve got some preliminary notes on the way cosmic energy is generated and flows into the core of the planet to join with Tiamut, but solution-wise? They’re stuck. Everything seems to circle back to concerns of tipping off Arishem.”
“Makes sense,” Druig said. “If we couldn’t handle them, Ajak could just call in and request some divine intervention. Or if they succeeded, he’d come looking to find out what happened.”
“Huh. That’s why Thor isn’t around.” Phastos stopped, lowering his hands and turning away from the display to give Ajak a significant look. “He’s on a mission to somewhere called Omnipotence City—a city of gods—to try to make contact with the Celestial pantheon. Negotiate with Arishem directly over the fate of Earth.”
Kingo blinked. Thor had certainly come a long way from the overexcited bundle of energy that had attached himself to Kingo back when they’d fought against the Frost Giant invasion. “That’s…”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Is that an option?” Sersi asked. She’d stepped forward, a hungry, hopeful look on her face. “Ajak? You could speak to Arishem, ask him to intercede. To spare the Earth.”
“It’s not our place to question Arishem,” Ikaris retorted.
Ajak was silent for a long moment, her forehead creased. “I spoke to him once before,” she said after a long moment, her tone subdued. “About Earth. He… I don’t think…”
“Sersi, Arishem isn’t going to abandon his Plan just because someone asks him nicely,” Ikaris said firmly.
“…Still,” Ajak said, a note of hesitation in her tone. “We should not pre-empt him, either. If Asgard wishes to approach Arishem on behalf of humanity and Midgard, maybe it would be wisest to await Arishem’s judgement rather than continuing to act on our own.”
Ikaris turned to look at her like she’d grown a second head. “What are you talking about, Ajak? This is irrelevant. The Emergences are necessary and it’s our entire purpose to safeguard them.”
Sersi stepped closer to him, reaching out a tentative hand to touch him lightly on the arm. “Ikaris, please. If there’s a chance…”
He set his jaw. “Fine. But waiting doesn’t make any sense, Ajak. It just gives the Avengers time to plan what moves they’ll make when Thor fails. You’re the Prime Eternal—if you want Arishem’s judgement, ask him for it.”
Ajak had a pensive expression on her face. “Perhaps… no. Waiting would be better. Arishem has far vaster concerns than the fate of a single planet. There’s no need for me to reach out. We’re not in a rush, after all. We could simply stand down for now. The Emergence is still several years away. If Thor speaks with him, Arishem will let us know his will.”
“You don’t want to talk to him because you already know what he’ll say!” Ikaris said accusingly.
“They don’t want to fight us, Ikaris! Thena is hurt. Perhaps badly. I have followed Arishem for millions of years, and I have never doubted him, but—”
“But? Now you do?”
Ajak’s face fell. “…After I let you all go, I travelled the world. Lived among the humans. I have seen them fight and lie and kill,” she said, looking at Druig for a moment before returning her gaze to Ikaris, “but I have also seen them laugh and love. I’ve seen them create and dream. This planet and these people… the cost of Arishem’s plan…”
Ikaris stared at her, stony-faced. “Your words are dangerously close to heresy, Ajak.”
She nodded slowly. “Maybe. There is faith, Ikaris, which I have held onto all this time. But maybe there is also such a thing as too much faith.”
“We exist for Arishem,” Ikaris said. “We were created to serve his Plan. It’s who we are.”
“But we’re still fallible, Ikaris.” Ajak had a note of desperation in her tone. “We were not made perfect. Just Eternal. Arishem—”
“Then speak to him!” Ikaris cut her off, slashing the air in a sharp gesture with the edge of his palm.
“Ikaris is right,” Druig said, taking his feet down off the table. He slapped his thighs with his palms, then stood to look at them. “You can’t dither on this, Ajak. Make a decision. Is humanity worth saving? Should we be joining Thena and Gilgamesh?” he asked, holding up a hand to ward off a sudden murderous look from Ikaris. “If you still trust in Arishem’s judgement, there are only two options: We move forward or we seek his guidance.”
“But…!” Sersi looked at him, her tone urgent.
Druig silenced her with a look and a sharp shake of his head. “Well?”
Ajak didn’t respond, a tense silence stretching out for several seconds.
“You’re not fit to be the Prime Eternal,” Ikaris said, his expression twisting in anger. “If you won’t lead us, I will.”
Her eyes widened. “Ikaris…”
He turned away from her, casting his gaze about the room challengingly. “Am I wrong? Ajak said it herself: She begins to doubt Arishem. She can’t even bring herself to speak to him. We can’t follow her any longer.” He looked at Kingo. “There isn’t any room for doubt when it comes to safeguarding the Celestials—to protecting the future of the universe. This is too important,” he told him.
Kingo opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Doubts and fears and worries of his own coiled around his insides, squeezing his chest and making it difficult to breathe. He could scarcely believe what was happening right now. Ajak’s words felt wrong in a way that it was difficult to describe… admitting that she’d started to doubt Arishem? It rattled him in a way that not much else ever had. And he didn’t disagree with Ikaris—they should definitely be reaching out to Arishem to ask for direction—but still… Ajak was their leader. She’d always been their leader.
“Tell me,” Ikaris prompted. “Who’s right? Who do you stand with?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Kingo saw Makkari look to Druig, her expression forlorn.
The mind controller ignored her gaze, his own eyes remaining focused unwaveringly on Ikaris. “I stand with Ikaris,” he said.
Ikaris, signed Makkari.
“Ikaris,” Sprite said softly.
“Druig,” Sersi started. “We can—”
“This doesn’t change anything, Sersi,” Druig said, cutting her off. He turned his head to stare at her for a moment. “We need strong leadership, not Ajak’s indecision, otherwise we risk losing everything. This gives us the best chance.”
“Sersi…” Ikaris said softly. “I’m sorry. I know you care about Earth, about—”
“Ikaris,” Sersi whispered, her eyes dropping to the ground, as though she couldn’t meet Ajak’s gaze.
Phastos had been watching the interplay between the others intently, arms folded tightly across his chest. “Ikaris,” he said after a moment.
Kingo looked around the room, a note of confusion marring his hesitation. It was almost unbelievable that everyone had sided with Ikaris. Even Sersi, somehow, seemed to have conceded? She’s been practically begging for them to do something—anything—to save humanity. Of all of the Eternals, Kingo had expected her to side with Ajak in at least trying to buy some breathing room. But what else could be done now?
“Ikaris,” he said quietly.
--
Less than ten minutes later, the Eternals had returned to the Domo.
Ikaris had expressed his intent to take on the mantle of Prime Eternal along with the ability to communicate directly with Arishem. He’d reach out to the leader of the Celestial pantheon to confirm his appointment as the new Prime Eternal, explain the situation, and seek Arishem’s guidance on how to proceed. Ajak would be placed in suspended animation in the interim until a path forward was decided. Ikaris had even raised the possibility that Arishem might instruct them to reset her memories, which felt insane.
Resetting Druig had already felt like almost too much, even with him directly threatening the Emergence, but from what Ajak had told them before, she had never been reset before. In between cycles, when the rest of the Eternals had their memories wiped, she would watch over them in the World Forge while they were prepared for their next mission. She had millions of years of experience—losing that would be a massive blow.
Kingo glanced up at the tall, crystal statue of Arishem. The figure of God was blood red, shifting to white as his legs merged into a more organic formation that continued down to form the circular crystalline pool that dominated the centre of the chamber, the entire work carved from some massive, singular piece.
There was a viewing window at the far end, opposite the way they’d come in, which still looked out over the green forest around the Avengers’ compound, but the light filtering through it was heavily muted, leaving the pale glow that filtered up from the pool itself as the room’s primary light source. It felt like a sacred space. Though it wasn’t exactly a formal ‘temple’, Kingo knew he wasn’t the only one who’d come here before when he’d need to think things through.
He wished he had time to do that now. He wished he felt all of Ikaris’ conviction. He wished that Ajak’s uncertainty hadn’t shaken him the way it had.
Set in even intervals around the edges of the room—between the entrance and the window—was a series of golden designs, each a symbolic representation of one of the Eternals. Ikaris led Ajak to hers.
As she reached it, she turned to face the rest of them. Her gaze passed across the gathered Eternals, lingering briefly and deliberately on each of them in turn. “I’m so sorry, all of you,” she said quietly. “This isn’t… I’ve led you down the wrong path.”
“Ajak, don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” Ikaris said.
She inclined her head, then took a step back. Phastos gestured, the golden rings around his fingers glimmering as they interfaced with the Domo. Lines of cosmic energy lifted from the design on the wall, reaching around Ajak like spidery fingers as they drew Celestial language across her body and ceremonial armour. Her muscles relaxed as her eyes clouded over, then flickered and closed.
There was a moment of silence, then Phastos gestured again and rings of metal devices unfolded from his arms, clicking into place around the Prime Eternal’s body and limbs, securing her in place. It seemed almost obscene, seeing Ajak caged.
Phastos and Ikaris moved closer to her. The technopath placed his palms together and closed his eyes. After a moment’s concentration, he moved his hands through a series of short, deliberate gestures in the air. As he pushed one hand, palm-out, toward Ajak, a circular design of golden cosmic energy traced across her chest, below her collarbone. He pointed at it with two fingers of one hand, and a golden, metallic sphere shimmered out of her, passing through her flesh and armour as though there was nothing in the way at all. Phastos drew back, bringing the sphere hovering over his other palm.
The sphere wasn’t completely solid—it was more like a dense, complicated array of parts orbiting a golden light, glowing from within. Phastos raised his free hand, pressing his fingers together for a moment before flicking them apart. Kingo flinched back a little as the sphere exploded, separating into hundreds of tiny parts that continued to orbit in a corona of debris above the technopath’s hand. The light in the middle was bright enough that Kingo couldn’t actually tell whether it had shape or form to it.
“Phastos?” There was an edge of tension in Ikaris’s voice.
Phastos ignored him, flicking his fingers a couple of times—the parts hanging in the air reconfiguring slightly as he made some sort of adjustment—before he brought his hands together again and the sphere reassembled.
“Is it safe?” Druig asked, watching carefully from his vantage point several paces back.
“I think so. No way to be certain,” Phastos responded.
“What? Why wouldn’t it be safe?” Ikaris’s brow crinkled in confusion, glancing between the two other Eternals.
Phastos gestured, tilting his hand. All at once, the bindings that he’d secured around Ajak detached and flew through the air, slamming into Ikaris with enough force that—caught off-guard—they ripped him from his feet and slammed him back onto the space next to Ajak’s, right onto his own symbolic design. Spidery golden energy crawled over his body even as his eyes started to glow but, with another flick of Phastos’s fingers, his eyes clouded over and closed. Ikaris went still, his body thrust forcefully into suspended animation as the bindings secured him in place.
“Woah!” Kingo yelped, eyes wide. “What the hell?” Instinctively, golden energy started playing across his palms.
Makkari placed her hand on Kingo’s shoulder and he jerked around to look at her, unsure what else to do. He was met with a sympathetic look with a note of warning in it. With her free hand, Makkari made a single gesture. Don’t.
“I’ve been wanting to clip your wings for a long time, Ikaris,” Phastos said to the unconscious Eternal, his tone low.
“Sprite?” Druig’s took a step forward, spinning slowly in a circle as he looked searchingly around the chamber, his hands held out in a peaceful gesture. “Where’d you go?”
“Sprite, it’s okay,” Sersi said reassuringly. “Please, come out.”
Kingo was looking wildly around now. Sprite had vanished, but everyone else didn’t seem surprised at all by what had just happened. “Makkari, what? What is happening right now? Sersi? Phastos?”
Phastos had both hands held out in front of him, palm-up—one still had the golden sphere he’d removed from Ajak hovering over it, while the other hand held a triangular golden representation of the Domo, flickering blips marking out their locations. “She’s tricking the sensors, but I think she’s still in the room.”
Druig nodded. “Sprite, we’re only doing what we have to. Ikaris left us no choice,” he said to the air, spreading his arms out and turning slowly in a circle.
“Please, Sprite,” Sersi added. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about this before, but you don’t need to hide. Everything’s going to be alright.”
While Sersi continued to try to coax the child-like Eternal out of hiding, Druig walked over to Phastos and gestured expectantly. Phastos hesitated a brief moment, then nodded. The orb floated forward, golden designs lighting up briefly on Druig’s chest as it passed through and into him.
A sort of fascinated horror had taken hold of Kingo, Makkari’s hand still heavy on his shoulder. There wasn’t much he could do but watch. “Druig?” he asked helplessly.
“Sorry to spring this on you like this, Kingo. Sprite, too, if you’re listening,” the mind controller said, his tone light, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “The others and I had already agreed that Ajak needed to take a step back. We just needed to work around Ikaris, and this just turned out to be the perfect opportunity.”
Kingo stared at him in disbelief. “You…?”
“We needed a new leader, so we had a vote. An earlier one, I mean,” Druig said, spreading his hands in a welcoming gesture, dark eyes flashing as he looked back at Kingo. “And I graciously accept the role of Prime Eternal.”
