I was irritated, and at first I was not sure exactly why. Tony was saying something in the background, but I found it hard to focus on his words or even care, for one simple reason.
I was flying, and yet...
I frowned as I looked outside the window of the jet and saw the clouds drift past us. We were thousands of feet up and moving faster than anything else in the sky, and yet there was no joy to be felt at the feat.
There was no sensation to this travel. Where was the fresh scent of newly formed clouds? The heat of the sun upon my back? The fury of the wind lashing against me as I defied nature? The whipping of the air, the calls of the birds and other avian creatures that shared the sky, there was none of that.
Instead, I sat cradled in a chair as the world whipped by me. In another life, in another body, this would've been a comfortable trip.
"Are you even listening to me?"
I turned at the increased pitch of the voice. Tony Stark was looking at me with a frown, till he saw the bigger frown on my face.
"What's wrong, Ginger?"
I raised a brow at the nickname before turning away in nonchalance. It took me a second before I found the right way to put my words.
"I dislike this."
"What do you mean?"
"This is not how flight should be. It should not be this... clean. Drab, boring, pick your flavour, Stark, but there is something revolting about this means of travel."
Tony looked at me in surprise for a moment before letting out a chuckle. At my inquiring gaze, he raised his hand to forestall any other word before explaining.
"I shouldn't have laughed, but it was just so amusing hearing—"
"You think I'm funny."
Tony froze, his instinctive rebuttal dying in his throat as he realized that suit or no suit, he was in an enclosed space, thousands of feet in the air, with a god whose biceps were bigger than his head.
"Ha, of course not. Thor was the funny one. Our Thor, that is, blonde hair, pretty boy with the ye old English." He immediately replied with both hands raised in a conciliatory gesture as he continued. "What I meant is that our Thor had this same reaction the first time he flew with us."
"I see." I turned away, and I could almost hear the soft sigh of relief Tony let out at my words.
"So, are you going to tell me what happened back there?"
I thought about it for a long moment. There were few pros to telling him, just as there were a few cons. Telling Tony the truth would put him on edge, and knowing him, he would keep an eye on Ikaris in case he ever decided to pull off his genocidal plan again, which could, in its own way, set the Eternal off like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
On the other hand, telling Tony would also mean the man could put that big brain of his into figuring out how, or possible means, to extract Tiamat from the planet safely. After all, her emergence had simply been pushed back; it had not been cancelled. It might be dozens of years, or a couple of centuries, and if they were really lucky, even a millennium, but sooner or later, Tiamat would emerge.
I weighed the thought for a long moment before deciding to tell him.
Tony Stark had an allergic reaction to secrets being kept from him, and at the end of the day, Earth was not my home. It had been in another lifetime, and looking down from the plane, my Aesir-Jotun eyes peering through the clouds to see the city below us, I could admit that I loved the planet. Yet I could not stay here, not when I had a whole realm and family waiting for me.
In essence, I could help, but Earth's problem was in the hands of humans to truly fix, and human I was not. Not anymore.
"This is going to be a very long tale, but I suppose it is one you, of all people, should know. What do you know about the Eternals?"
Tony glanced at a laptop beside him and glanced back at me.
"Is it bad if I admitted to doing a little digging after the first time we met?"
I turned to him. "I expected nothing less, Stark."
He let out a sigh at that. "Okay, that's good. No need to lie or disguise, then. After I left your homestead back then, I ran facial analysis on all of you. Ava Starr was easy enough to find out about." He gestured at the woman sleeping some length away. "I'm still not sure why you brought her, but I suppose her presence would help put Natasha on her feet, which would hopefully get her to stop pestering me..."
I stared at him, which was enough to make him realize he had gone slightly off track.
"Anyhoo... I also ran your features through all known databases, and while there are a couple of people that've looked vaguely like you over the years, mostly Asgardians who retired to Earth, if mine and Friday's conclusions are correct, there was no one quite like you, so I was able to put that thought to rest. The same couldn't be said for one Miss Ajak Hayek."
I propped my elbow on the armrest and rested my head in my open palm as I focused on him.
"You see, it was not particularly difficult. I had even read about them once, back in high school. A brief glimpse into the origin of ancient Mesopotamia. Ten powerful figures who came from the start to help build one of the greatest civilizations of ancient times. Of course, most of it had been simple legends passed down in drawings and art, and yet when I dug deep, it was clear there was some resemblance. The deeper I dug into ancient Mesopotamia and Babylon, the more accurate the pictures became, till I was certain she was the one, or at least one of the ten figures.
"I already knew she was different, of course, but that simply enlightened me further on things. You asked what I know about the Eternals? I know they were ten figures in ancient history that guarded and protected humanity in its infancy from, according to the legends and myths, some sort of monsters? They helped build the foundation for what humanity is today before they suddenly disappeared and have never been seen or heard from, till now."
I stared back at Tony with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. I should not have been surprised, and yet I was anyway. A single look had been all he required to start an investigation that unearthed a secret thousands of years old.
"You're correct."
He smiled till I continued.
"Not completely, but close enough for a mortal, I suppose." My words irked him, judging by the frown on his face. They had been chosen on purpose. Tony Stark was a proud man, a man confident in his intellect, and any mention of the limits of it was not taken lightly, but once again, rationality won over his pride. Which reminded me that this was not the Tony Stark of the Avengers or Iron Man. The brashful man who could hardly swallow his own pride. This was an older Tony Stark, one who had grown wiser after the loss of the team that had been like a family to him. This is the Tony Stark who had sacrificed himself to save the universe.
"Tell me then, what did I miss?" he nearly demanded, but I nodded along.
"The Eternals are a race of superhumans that wander the galaxy fighting a group of creatures called Deviants."
Tony frowned and muttered, "Deviants. I've heard that name before."
"You should have. They're monstrous, near-immortal creatures that have appeared several times in history and have been termed by multiple names by multiple civilizations. Devils and demons, for one..." I thought about how much I should share, of the Celestials, of Deviants, and the Eternals, then I came to a decision. If anybody could bear the weight of the truth, it was Tony Stark, and here I was to curse him with more knowledge.
"The Deviants were created by a higher power, one as far beyond you as you are to an ant. A Celestial. They're the oldest race in the galaxy, and the most powerful. To them, the manipulation and creation of energy and matter is as easy as breathing. After all, only a group of them had been enough to create the Big Bang, which resulted in the formation of planets, realms, and the races that inhabit them."
"Are you certain of this?" Tony stuttered. For the first time since I knew him, his features were filled with complete shock as he sank back into his chair, his hands covering his face. Not even my presence or the convergence had shocked him like this. "Of course you are. You don't have any reason to lie." Just as I expected, I could see him adapting to that information, the knowledge of the true monsters that roamed outside Earth.
"Unfortunately, or fortunately," I continued my tale, my eyes wandering outside the window to look at the cities passing beneath us, "for all their power and might, they are few in number. The process to create a new Celestial is one that takes countless millennia, and it is a process known as seeding. Celestials need the energy of new sentient lifeforms to form, so they are seeded in the heart of planets with the capability to bear those sentient lifeforms, but there was a problem. More often than not, those sentient lifeforms would die at the hands of the apex predators that roamed these lands, so the Celestials devised a solution."
"The Deviants," Tony whispered. My eyes flicked to him, and he was already sitting up once more. Gone was the shock; his brown eyes were narrowed and focused as he slowly put the pieces together, to no great surprise. He was too smart not to figure it out.
"Correct. They hunted the apex creatures and safeguarded the seeded worlds, but like all prototypes, the Deviants went out of control and began to hunt down the sentient life they were meant to protect, and so the Eternals were created to hunt down the Deviants and to protect the sentient lives, and that is how it has been for time immemorial."
There was silence in the cabin, and I turned to watch as Tony began to arrange, rearrange, and dissect my words, the things I said, and the things I did not say, and I saw the moment it came to him, the moment he realized the truth I had left out. His voice shook in barely concealed worry as he asked the first in a line of questions that would give him nightmares for days to come.
"What happens after the formation of these Celestials?"
"They are born. It is a... violent birth."
"The planets," he asked as he turned to face me. "What happens to the planets, Ginger?"
"They do not survive it."
Tony was silent once more as he followed that train of thought to the beginning of my tale, and the figures central to it. "So if there are Deviants and Eternals on Earth, that means..." He turned back to face me. "There's a Celestial here."
"Yes," I admitted with a nod. "Its name is Tiamut, and it should be nearing the time of its birth, but it has been put off."
"What do you mean?"
"The Earth has grown, Stark. It's like a pregnant cow whose womb has swollen, or a dragon in an egg that suddenly grew bigger overnight. The whelp in its womb is too small, the wyrmling in the egg too young to break out of its shell, and now it has to wait longer—wait for more nutrition, wait till it's larger, till the womb can barely hold it again, before it is born."
"So the convergence saved us then?" Tony replied in realization.
"In a way, yes. But not everyone was happy about that."
"The Eternals," Tony replied with a frown as he looked down at his hands, that giant brain of his putting the clues together. "They didn't like it, did they? But it's been done already. Unless they have a way to manipulate time, or separate the merged Earth, then there is no other way to return things to how they were, unless..." He trailed off in realization, fury, and horror, fighting for a spot on his face.
"You said the seeded Celestial, Tiamut, feeds on the life force of sentient beings, and it was almost ready to be born, but the Earth has grown bigger, and even with the addition of more sentient beings, they don't match up to the sudden, explosive growth in landmass. Which means the only other way for them to continue with the birth of the Celestial is a purge." He continued, his voice cold and clinical in a way that would've worried me if I didn't know I could punt him to the moon with a backhanded slap.
"They wanted to purge the new inhabitants of Earth, destroy what they could, and watch the Celestial's birth obliterate what was left, didn't they?" His fingers squeezed his own armrest tight, while his features had decided on anger,
"You are a wise man, Tony," I found myself admitting. He had ridden through all the required logic trains and arrived at the ideal conclusion. "And you are correct, but only partially. It was not the decision of all the Eternals. You'll find that most of them love the Earth, they love humanity, and were not aware of their true purpose and goal here."
"A radical, then. We have enough of them among humanity; I shouldn't be surprised that even immortals have them as well." He glanced back at the laptop, no doubt at the image of the fight and what was left of it. "So what happened?"
"I changed his mind."
Tony looked at me, then back to the computer, and let out a chuckle with little emotion in it. "I can see that... so what now? You've pushed the problem back, but it's not solved yet..." He drifted off, and I could see him measure the best way to say his next sentence. "Can we kill it?" he suddenly asked, staring me in the eyes.
"Yes," I admitted easily. "It's barely formed. There's some sapience there, but not enough for it to know to fight back. I'm sure you can cook up something that kills it in the cradle, but would you be able to deal with the consequences of such an action?"
I could see realization blossom behind his eyes, so I continued.
"What would you do if your baby were strangled in its crib? What would you do to the person who inflicted such a sin upon you?" It was a rhetorical question. He answered anyway, his voice empty like the void, his eyes far away in the distance.
"I'd kill the person."
I nodded along in understanding. "Celestials are not humans. They do not necessarily follow the same logic as you do. They might simply wave away the loss, or they might do as you would. Regardless of the choice they make, it would be theirs to make, without any input from you. So I ask you once again, Anthony Stark, would you be able to deal with the consequences of such an action?"
It was a fair question. Sersi and the rest of the Eternals had basically killed Tiamut, but they were Eternals, favoured children of the Celestials, people who had borne witness to and aided the birth of multiple Celestials, judging by the Mahd Wy'ry that plagued Thena, and even with that, Arishem had taken them in to be judged. What would he do to a humanity with that same audacity?
The ride continued in silence as Tony furiously thought of a way out, hopefully a way out that did not involve killing the baby at the heart of the planet. I knew he was going to come up with a sufficient plan, so I left him to it. With the man sufficiently distracted, I looked through the window once more and watched as we flew above a city. The jet had slowed remarkably, which meant we were close to our location. Then I spotted it, thousands of feet below me.
The symbol was a strange one, a circle with multiple curved lines intersecting themselves, almost like a basketball. It was on a window that faced the sky. The New York Sanctum, I realized a heartbeat later. I moved before I even thought about it, my feet carrying me up and away as I began to walk towards the door.
The speed of my movement was enough to force Tony out of his thoughts as his eyes followed me in confusion till I got to the door.
"W-what are you doing?"
"I'm making a quick stop." Then I braced myself against the floor, my feet sinking into the metal floor before lashing out in a Spartan kick that folded the door of the jet like cardboard as it got flung somewhere in the direction of Alaska, and once again I was hit with the sensation of the wind on my face, the sun on my skin, and the cries of birds.
This is what it meant to fly.
I was still surprised Strange had not come searching for me. Stark had, and he was as Mystically atrophied as any human could be. The Sorcerer Supreme did not have that excuse.
I took a single step out, heedless of the calls of my name as Tony and an awakened Ava Starr called for me, and dropped like a missile towards the awaiting Sanctum, bursting into laughter as magical protections came to life above the structure, forming bands of gold and red energy. With a boisterous laugh, I dived towards the structure, and my way back home.
If the mountain does not come to Mohammed, Mohammed is going to have to kick in the front door of the fucking Mountain.
"Knock Knock, Strange!!"