This work is a piece of fiction. While inspired by real events, cultures, and practices in human history, the story blends factual history with fictional characters, dramatizations, and creative interpretation.
It is not intended to promote, glorify, or encourage any illegal activities, substance use, or harmful behavior. All depictions of sensitive topics are included solely for narrative and historical context.
For the effects of the story, all characters are to be considered above the majority age.
Reader discretion is advised.
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Earth-5H1N3, Year 2001.
Humanity was in a rush to waste time. The war was never about winning, no matter how close some of them thought they were to victory. From the start, it was all about making Odin waste time, about gaining an hour, a minute, or even a second more.
So, even when the SIEVE was activated and Odin, tearstricken, disappeared, leaving behind a corrugated wound on Reality, those who knew, those who had fought the deities a few minutes ago, didn't let their guard down.
With bathed breaths, through spatial sorcery, mutant abilities, magic, or even divinity, they observed and waited in silence.
Fury, sweat beading on his forehead, used his magic to keep track of the wound left after the SIEVE's attack while simultaneously getting a grasp of the destruction wrought in the past hour.
"... It's hopeless," Fury muttered.
Humanity, as a civilization, did not resemble an archipelago. Humanity was not composed of various self-sufficient monolithic 'islands'.
Commerce had woven humanity into a three-dimensional web where none that mattered could claim full emancipation from the bonds that tied humans.
From the point of view of a species, this was awe-inspiring. The aggregation of its parts made humanity greater than the bare sum of its components.
However...
"With so many cities razed... The crisis we experienced after the Goblin Force and Aragorn's clash will be cute in comparison," Fury commented.
Fury, as a human who saw the forest and not just its trees, understood better than most that this was the end for human civilization.
He was not a man of faith; he had seen and done too much under the cloak of shadows that he believed faith would not be disimilar to hypocrisy from his part.
Yet, now he found himself praying for 'Insanity Incarnate' to take pity once more on his kin. Though... something told him that would not be the case.
'Something is coming,' Gaea's voice broke through his downward spiral of depression.
"G-Goddess Bast advised to brace ourselves," Queen Shuri said with a stutter over the conference call.
As deities, they were better attuned to Reality than those with lower 'Authority' over it, so they felt the wrongness first.
It wasn't long before they were not the only ones.
Imagine a bast of nightmares, one so imposing it cast hallucinations of standing under the shadow of the tallest peaks, so incomprehensible it caused a searing migraine to gaze at, and it stared at you with such bloodlust that even the dullest of mortals could feel something wrong.
Imagine this beast stood right behind you. Its breath was not felt, its warmth was not sensed, yet it was undeniable that it stood behind you.
That's what humanity, from the youngest newborn to the oldest elder, felt when Kubos stepped into Reality.
It was a sensation of danger and incongruence so transhuman that a few would have perished if not for the passive blessing of Gaea seeping from the roots of the Arbor Mundi.
It was something so distinctly wrong and bizarre that no one had a shadow of a doubt that whatever was responsible should—no! Must cease to exist.
"In my four billion years, I have never gazed upon something so wrong," Gaea's voice echoed through and from the Arbor Mundi.
Kubos didn't grant a reply. Its gaze was lazy, listless, yet it radiated so much bloodlust that it could be felt even by the Inhumans and the Watcher in the moon.
Its features were not those of Frigga or Odin after the fusion.
Influenced by Odin's last wish, it bore the likeness of those whom you most yearn for at the moment.
To Gaea, it looked like Death and sometimes like Aragorn.
To Stark—who woke up due to the sensation of dread—it was Seraph.
To Johnny, it was Yelena.
To Doom, it was Aragorn.
To Magneto, it was Wanda.
To Fury, it was Aragorn.
To the Watcher, it was Aragorn.
To Pietro, it was Aragorn.
To Carol—observing from the Light Dimension—it was Aragorn.
It was not that Aragorn was the most loved dragon; it was that the thing induced so much dread that many could only yearn for something equally dreadful to counter it.
'It's time, Carol,' Pietro said through the psionic link he shared with Carol.
'... Will our sacrifices amount to anything against that... thing?' Carol asked.
'... I'll be leaning on you. Do not despair, the Old Man will not allow his shinniest soul to be mared,' Pietro replied. His message carried a defeatist undertone laced with zero fucks left to care.
He was going to experience death soon; that was a fact. Instead of fear, reluctance, and denial, he simply stopped caring. It was inevitable, since nothing could be done, why worry?
'Easy for you to say, you're not the one who will respawn,' Carol grumbled.
'I can twice,' Pietro said. 'I think we can stall this thing for a couple of minutes.'
'... I know... I'm ready,' Carol assured.
'Then, begin!'
With his shout, Carol exited the Light Dimension, and immediately after, a beam of light that seemed to be solid and stretched infinitely parallel to the surface speared through the Kubos' center of mass.
How to stall the newly risen eldritch abomination, Step 1: Distance in movement.
For beings of a certain level, Space-Time was a suggestion—Aragorn had explained this multiple times. In fact, short of overwhelming power, plot armor, or concepts, almost nothing could damage an Entity.
Barriers, shields, walls, defenses, and any other form of restriction were useless unless they were powered by beings of the same power level.
The Haloans saw evidence of this during the Goblin Force event. Had it not been for Aragorn or the Infinity Stones powering the barrier, nothing would have stopped the rampaging Goblin Force.
So, how did Aragorn keep it away from Earth? He dragged it away, effectively becoming the barrier himself. But could Pietro and Carol reenact that feat? Can they stand in front of Kubos and bar its passage?
No, that was beyond their pay grade.
However, there was part of what Aragorn did that they could replicate... somewhat. The dragging part.
Reality had laws, and to enforce these laws, reality used its entire 'weight'. This meant that by taking advantage of these laws, Carol and Pietro could use Reality's weight to their advantage.
299,792,458 meters per second was the fastest an object with mass could move while in the space-time mesh. This was a law.
So the beam that pierced infinitely through Kubos' mass center was closer to a rope than a spear. It pulled and pushed Kubos at 299,792,458m/s with the weight of Reality behind it.
Hence, while keeping Kubos locked at lightspeed, they had effectively distanced it from Gaea.
How to stall the newly risen eldritch abomination, Step 2: Knowledge can bind.
The laws of Reality, while helpful, when it came to dealing with a Reality Warper, were not the solution; they were closer to a provisional stopgap.
If lightspeed kept it trapped, why not wish for its ignorance?
Odin, when he was simply Odin, had wished for immunity to light. Why couldn't Kubos do the same?
So, in the attosecond it took Kubos to realize what was happening and to will to abandon lightspeed, it needed to be distracted.
In the length of the solidified beam of light locking Kubos at lightspeed, [Script] bloomed with Kubos' center of mass as its origin.
[Script], when handled by the correct scribe, could reach the conceptual levels. From the Drachantheon Therion, only Aragorn and Madelyne could reach that level, and from the two, only Aragorn could comfortably wield it.
To combat this, the Therions chose the path of specialization. Wielding concepts was so useful and of such importance that it was wiser to at least wield one conceptual [Script] than almost master a few.
Pietro, for reasons unknown, had an affinity for [Bonds/Links/Ties/Connections].
Concepts were dangerous weapons when wielded properly. Something as mundane as [Peace] could imply peace between particles and effectively kill all entropy on a target. And [Bonds], when used correctly, could imply an undeniable connection unless countered by another concept.
Hence, Kubos, newly risen and unable to wield concepts, could not deny the connection Pietro established with its mind.
Then, the flow of information started.
How much information exists depends on the tools of the observer. If the observer had a telescope of the latest Duskari technology, the amount of information they would be able to gather from the stars would be staggering, but how much information could they gather from the bacteria found on the planetary surface?
If it were a microscope of the latest Duskari technology, how much information could they gather about the stars?
So, with Aragorn's eyes that even observe concepts and things for which no concepts exist, how much information could they gather?
Aragorn was an overprotective freak. He was not the type who would prohibit his children from leaving home for fear of the world. He was the type who would load his children with so many countermeasures that they could be considered almost unkillable even to the eyes of others of his level.
Beings were made from [Soul], [Mind], and [Body]; the Trinity of Self. Aragorn didn't care that much for their bodies. Bodies were replaceable. Aragorn cared for their souls, and since the mind had a direct channel to the soul, he cared for their minds.
So, how could he defend their minds?
The answer was information.
Stopping a Cosmic Entity from reading their minds was almost impossible. For example, Phoenix, the [Phoenix Force], was the abstract that governed minds. Phoenix was the psionic energy that allowed thought, so how could anything Aragorn did stop a being such as Phoenix from intruding on their minds?
Imagine the mind as this shifting three-dimensional matrix that is always growing, like the universe, and that is always active, like Reality. Aragorn created a shell around their minds, like an egg's shell, to protect them. And the material he used for this eggshell was not calcium; it was all the 'noise' his eyes captured.
It wasn't even defragmented data. It was fragmented data randomly pieced together. At one point, Kubos might have been going over a section of the invisible spectrum of light, the next, it was counting the quarks in a particular atom Argorn observed in the 1,456,986 BCE of Earth-199999.
Kubos' mind, like that of any other Cosmic Entity, processed information so fast that humans lacked a scale for it; however, Pietro's eggshell was not forcing data at the speed at which Kubos' mind could accept it. The Eggshell was a construct made from all the noise Aragorn had observed ever since his arrival at Marvel.
And that infinite ocean of information was being forced on Kubos. Hence, Kubos was unable to will lightspeed from affecting it.
How to stall the newly risen eldritch abomination, Step 3: Double-tap.
Even if the Cosmic Entity had been sealed on a beam of light moving away from Earth at 299,792,458m/s and had its processing centers overloaded with unquantifiable loads of data, Cosmic Entities were not so simple to deal with.
Even without the need to think, a Cosmic Entity could act. It is not always the case, but it is possible.
Take Death, for example, would the Abstract of Death have to think to wish [Death] upon a target, or would she simply will it? Would an Abstract be limited by something so mortal as thought?
Not all Cosmic Entities were the same. Aragorn could split his [Mind], [Soul], and [Body], and even without the assistance of the others, each self would be capable of action, will, and thought. Naturally, not all Cosmic Entities were the same.
What about Kubos? Was it the type of being that needed to think? Was it only a phase after its birth? Was it ignorance born from being a literal child?
Pietro and Carol didn't have the answer, nor the leeway to wait for one. So, double-tap it was!
Carol appeared next to Kubos, riding the same beam of light, and hugged it... Then, there was brightness.
It had been a few seconds, so Kubos was 'barely' outside Earth, and the light was so bright that it bore holes in the ozone layer, even from that distance.
"NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO," Fury cried.
The light killed most of everything on a hemisphere. It heated the oceans, melted ice caps, and ripped parts of the atmosphere and magnetosphere.
Carol's light, after having fused with her armor, was not simply photons and waves. There was a certain aspect to it that had managed to harm Odin even after wishing for light immunity. It was something that was not quite on the level of [Damage] but that far either.
As a result of the explosion, aside from a scorched hemisphere on Earth, Kubos was left in charred pieces while still being pulled/pushed by the inscribed beam of light.
In the Light Dimension, after Carol's self-immolation, a shard of something crystal-like shone bright, and slowly it took the shape of Carol's armor, then, slowly, her spirit took shape, and with a startled gasp, she came back from death.
Without wasting time, without processing her death, with her eyes dulled by the experience, she jumped out and appeared right next to Kubos again.
In the fractions of a second it took Carol to return, Kubos was already almost fully restored. Its body was ready; unfortunately for it, its mind was still processing, so it could not react to Carol's second hug.
Light, brightness, sine, and Carol had done it again.
On Earth, whatever had miraculously survived the first explosion couldn't deal with a second one for sure.
Once more, Carol reformed in the Light Dimension from a shard. She departed for another hug, and the dimension of light was left with two shards less; these were a finite resource.
Another explosion of light... Then, one more... Two more... Light... More light... Brightness... Shine... Photons... and then all over again.
'It's adapting,' Pietro informed Carol before she could blow up again. He did not receive a reply, though.
Carol, almost like a machine, did not stop.
Her eyes, even while shining bright like supernovas, were dull—if that was possible. She didn't think, she just acted.
'...' Pietro didn't say more; he understood what was going on.
Carol was not a Therion. Her mind and soul were not connected to Aragorn in such an intimate way; her mind—while protected—was not as abnormal as the Therions' had become.
Death was not for mortals, as contradictory as it sounded. Death was an end; it was not a mark on an unending cycle. Life was not a race with laps; there was a start and a finish, clearly delimited.
"GrRRr—" Kubos growled out before Carol exploded one more time.
Pietro observed with rapt attention, the light unable to blind him. He was initially hiding from Reality's rejection inside the Armor Mundi; now he was hiding outside the timestream.
With his unique perception of [Time], he was simultaneously tracking the present and observing the future. He could see his future self, where it succeeded, where it failed, and where it could improve, and concurrently, he was prying free Kubos' hold of the future.
He couldn't rush, lest he alert the Cosmic Entity, but he could also not take too long; Carol was about to run out of shards, and Kubos was seconds away from freeing itself.
Then it happened.
"SHIT!" Pietro cried.
The timestream fluctuated, and then something pierced through his back and erased him.
Inside the timestream, Carol was about to hug Kubos once more when something slapped her out of Reality and banned the Light Dimension from Reality.
In that exact moment, not only was the Light Dimension blocked from Reality, but for good measure, all [Light] became [Anti-Light] and the Universe darkened at once.
When a star dies, it takes millions of years, depending on the distance, for the absence of light following a supernova to reach the observer, but this is not what happened. The stars didn't die. Reality was warped, and all at once, light became shadows.
The beam of light lost form, and Kubos was set free, just about one minute and 20 seconds from Mars at lightspeed. Then, it willed his [Mind] away. Without a mind, the data overload could not affect it.
Kubos didn't so much as shout in rage; its expression didn't change, there was not even a scowl, but that was not the same as inaction.
In an instant, it appeared back on Earth, above the barrier protecting the Arbor Mundi, and it struck.
It wasn't a kick, it was not a punch. Kubos didn't strike with its body, nor did it attack with a form of energy projection. If Odin had to wish for reality to be warped, Kubos merely willed.
It willed for the barrier to cease.
It didn't understand much; Kubos was a child. What it did understand was that whatever had caused it damage before was related to what was hidden inside that tree.
It felt almost an instinctual compulsion to act against whatever that was, as if the source of all its anguish would be hurt or bent to its will if it managed to get it in its grasp.
Outside the timestream, Pietro's core, the only thing that survived whatever it was that destroyed his previous body, shone with a bluish light, and his original body was summoned.
His core sank in his chest, his eyes fluttered open, and he immediately dodged something incorporeal.
"Is this why you created a future, Odin?" Pietro asked.
With the timestream coursing behind him, Pietro locked his gaze on a spot. It was shapeless, but Pietro could make out its form and features. It was an echo.
Earth-5H1N3 has no parallel timelines, no branching realities. This means there will never be different versions of the inhabitants of Earth-5H1N3 born from this reality.
Odin, in his infinite wisdom, sought the answers that branched realities have. If you ever wonder what your life would be like if X event had never happened, all you need to do is find a branching reality to get the answer.
If you ever need information about an enemy you're about to face, why not take a look at a branching reality where you already faced them and find the answer? This was Odin's motive.
Unfortunately for him, even the Cosmic Cube was not enough to overturn the Doomed status of Earth-5H1N3 and reconnect it to the main multiverse, so it settled for the next best thing: the future.
From the future, Odin hoped to obtain information about Aragorn and gain assistance. The first objective failed in its entirety because Aragorn doesn't have a future or past, and since he had taken the Therions with him—outside of Earth-5H1N3—they did not appear conclusively in the future.
The second objective, on the other hand, did not disappoint. Not entirely, at least, given that even now, after Odin had ceased to exist, the echo from his future is still assisting his revenge.
This echo doesn't have a future anymore, and when the Temporal Reinstatement catches up to him, it will disappear. This did not make it weak; this echo had the same level of power as Odin did before his death, meaning that Pietro was out of his depth.
Because he was outside of the timestream, Pietro could not manipulate the effect of [Time] on himself; ergo, he had no time-related powers at the moment.
"It appears I won't be able to assist Goddess Gaea," Pietro commented.
"Was it its plan to murder Frigga?" The echo asked.
"'Its'? What do you mean?" Pietro asked, confused.
"Aragorn's," Odin explained, the magical invisibility becoming undone.
"The Old Man's original plan was to strap a singularity seed to your sons and return them to Asgard. He figured since you were attempting to hold his woman and unborn son hostage, he would hold your realm and everything you cared about hostage in return," Pietro explained.
"..." The starry surroundings seemed to warp under Odin's wrath.
"Luckily for you, due to that thing in your chest," Pietro pointedly stared at the Cosmic Cube, "the plan changed and only your wife and you were approved for execution, along with any invading forces."
"Actually," Pietro added. "Now that I think about it, we still hold your sons hostage, and possibly your realms, since I doubt that thing cares for Asgard," Pietro pointed at the timestream, at the present where Kubos was ramming the Arbor Mundi's barrier with attack after attack.
"... You think I care about sons that I'll never see again?" Odin asked.
"Whoa! Cold," Pietro said in an unimpressed tone. "They just lost their parents, and you are going to give up on them just because you'll die in a few?"
"Don't question my determination, boy!" Odin scolded.
"I think you would have done better with a bit of questioning in your life," Pietro chuckled darkly. "Maybe if the witch had questioned you instead of aiding and abetting you, you would not fucked up our Reality."
Pietro pulled out his lance from his storage and trained its tip on Odin.
"You can't win," Odin scoffed.
"Yeah, but I've just discovered why you're amiable to our talk," Pietro grinned evilly. "I may not have access to my [Time] domain, but you also don't have access to much to warp around here, mainly only [Space], and contrary to that thing, you can't create, can you?"
Pietro waited for no response, so while Odin clicked his tongue in annoyance, he attacked.
Pietro didn't have access to his real speed, but that didn't mean he was slow. Long before he was Time God, Pietro was a mutant and a Therion.
CLANG!
Pietro's spear and the Odinsword's clang sounded akin to an explosion.
"I may not have a reality to warp," Odin said beneath his breath before reaching for Pietro with blinding speed. "But you and I are not exceptions."
His eyes narrowed with vicious joy at the surprise in Pietro's eyes.
Odin allowed no preamble; he wished at once for Pietro to die, yet... nothing changed.
"Did I not mention that my true body has a higher resistance to reality warping?" Pietro grinned mischievously. "Maybe I also forgot to mention how bad an idea it is to touch a Therion."
Born from his core, void energy coiled around his being, and Odin immediately felt the warning bells urging him to pull back, but it was too late.
Pietro was not as skilled as James was in manipulating void energy. As a matter of fact, none of the Therions could do much besides a short-range explosion of void energy. But since Odin, so cooperative, reached for him, Pietro managed to catch him off guard.
Pietro didn't come out unscathed; his skin was slowly regenerating, but, arguably, Odin tanked the worst part of the explosion.
"Agh!" Odin cried.
Even under the influence of the Cosmic Cube, even while wishing for health and regeneration, Odin was having an impossible time trying to regenerate muscles and skin to cover the front of his body.
"WhWHAt igs THeees?" Odin asked with a garble to his voice as he was missing parts of his throat, facial muscles, and lips.
"It's the essence of the one you provoked," Pietro spoke through his telekinesis since he also bore some damage to his throat.
"..." Something broke in him.
Odin had seen, from a distance, Aragorn breathing a flame with the same signature as this energy. At that time, he could not peer into the nature and/or secrets of that breath attack. Now, after his existence had been uplifted so much, he could understand its horror.
"I forgot to say this before," Pietro added. "I may not win, but I just need to make sure you don't reinforce that thing. I'm confident I can prevent that from here."
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGGGGGG!" Odin roared a battle cry like a beast.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Pietro laughed at his despair and launched forward to meet his attacker.
Within the timestream, above Re-Nazca, Kubos finally broke through the barrier.
"Cremāre," Gaea cast.
Kubos bursts into a white flame before being consumed in its entirety, yet, not even a fraction of a second later, it reformed.
"Perturbātiō," Gaea cast again.
Kubos made half a circle and began walking parallel to the Arbor Mundi. Then it shook the confusion away and willed itself immune to magic.
Gaea sensed it, so she started to attack with her divinity instead of her magic. That avenue, sadly, was useless. Like Aragorn, Kubos could manipulate the entire energetic spectrum. Spells worked because they operated not only within the realm of physics but also the metaphysical.
With no other options available, the colossal roots of the Arbor Mundi rose free from the mantle's grasp and speared at Kubos.
This, however, was equally futile. The problem was not that Kubos could defend or damage the roots; the tree was too loaded with Aragorn's energy for that. The problem lay in the difference in speed.
Kubos was about eleven dimensions above Gaea in the realm of speed. No matter how menacing the roots that could reach the continental shelf looked, no matter how deadly they appeared, Kubos was too fast, and it could also warp space.
So, it wasn't even a minute later that it reached the trunk of the giant tree and began to tear the tree open with its hands.
"... It appears I'll soon meet my dragon again," Gaea commented. "I hope the children are alright," she wishfully added. She worried for Carol and Pietro, whom she could no longer contact.
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↓Part 2━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━Part 2↓
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Earth-199999, Earth.
Days Before the Emergence ~ 2023 CE (Current Era).
"So? Did it bring any noticeable benefit?"
It was a day after the return of the missing half of humanity. The world was coming out of its stupor, the defensive mechanism of the Obelisks cast a feint grid over the planet as they disperse slowly, the fires had snuffed out, and all that remained was for humanity to begin rebuilding and for them to return to their normalcy as the Sages exited society and returned to their Isthmus.
Aragorn was coiled around himself, shapeshifted into the form of a particularly exotic horned snake. His resting place was on Selene's thighs, and no, this was not the goth's thighs he had in mind, but Death had departed for Earth-5H1N3, and he had to settle for this vampire goth.
"Not at all," Selene replied almost lazily. She was dressed in a long, wine-red gown, with no footwear, and her long black hair flowed lazily with the desert breeze of the Giza Necropolis.
With Aragorn in her lap, her fingers tracing the seams of his scales, she witnessed Aragorn's skillful maintenance of the enchantments keeping the pyramids in their pristine state.
This would be the last time Aragorn would do this task; from this point forward, the chore would be inherited by the masters of the mystic arts.
His eyes, even while half-lidded sleepily, still shone with blue celestial objects.
"But my people did get the power-up I expected, so I'm counting it as a success," Selene added.
"Is the plan to leave them behind... for Hestia?" Aragorn asked.
"The sweetheart is weak, we know that," Selene replied. "I would feel better if I left my nerds to her. I know you would too."
"... Yeah," Aragorn assented. "I was already planning to leave the Libralisk to her... I think I will leave the other Obelisks intact as a measure of planetary protection."
"That's a sound decision," Selene nodded. "Our sweetheart is such a dofus that she would sacrifice herself for the protection of the planet if it meant protecting the mortals."
For a second, Aragorn's blue eyes flickered red. The red stars mixed with the blue, and his eyes turned purple before becoming red, only to return to blue.
Below them—because Selene was floating near the pyramids—a crowd had gathered. Some of them were making it out of the nearest Obelisk and were in the process of returning to their homes, if they had one standing; others had gathered in the nearest shelters and awaited aid.
Something translucent pulsed around the pyramids for a moment before returning to normalcy. Then the environment shifted into the Colosseum, and Aragorn started working on its enchantments.
"Should I stay with her?" Selene asked.
Aragorn paused for a moment before shaking his head in denial. "Wanda and I will need you back home."
"Me? What for?" Selene asked. She was not the closest with the Therions, even if she officially formed part of their pantheon; this was because they held a grudge for her part in Aragorn's demise during the Green Door event, even if that was over 300,000 years ago from the Therions' perspective.
"After our return, the time to deal with Gaea's siblings will come," Aragorn said. "The connection your vampires have with Chthon will prove helpful when Wanda attacks his realm."
"An interdimensional war right after a divine war? You really can't rest, can you?" Selene questioned Aragorn's work mindset.
"It's not by my choice," Aragorn grumbled. "Whatever messed Odin created will domino beyond its scale and fuck up everything else."
"How could that even be?" Selene asked before their surroundings changed, and they found themselves moving along the Great Wall.
"My main goal was to undo the 'Doom' label from our home, and to accomplish that, I couldn't tackle the mess all at once; I had to go in steps. Douse the immediate fires, dial down the not urgent ones, plot the future downfall of a few malign empires here and there; it was a delicate operation. The mess with the Green Door threw a small wrench into my plans—"
"Sorry about that," Selene meekly interjected.
"—But it wasn't that bad. Improvise, adapt, overcome: the ancient wisdom of Bear Grylls," Aragorn continued. "The mess with the Goblin Force was a complicated shit, though. I spent too much time away, and my suicidal reality began undoing my progress."
"I feel the need to apologize for the part my Amara played in that," Selene added.
"Don't mind it, I blamed Essex in its entirety for that," Aragorn dismissively waved his tail blade. "To continue with the explanation," Aragron said, "I planned to have my Therions help me stabilize a few parts of reality, so I thought it was prudent to have them ascend to divinity so that they could be useful; however..."
"You didn't count on Odin fucking things beyond expectation in the few hours we were away," Selene finished for him.
"Yeah..." Aragorn hissed. "Realities are complicated beyond measure, Selene. Deities may think they know shit," he snarled, "but how could they comprehend what birthed them? Realities are so complicated that I can't even explain them because all mortal languages I know lack vocabulary to name a few of the intricacies involved. Literally, there are no words to explain it. And then comes Odin and his Cosmic Cube."
"Oh, so it is confirmed that it was the Cosmic Cube?" Selene asked.
"Yes, Pietro sent a report not so long ago," Aragorn nodded. "The point is, Odin finished what Essex started, and now I need to be more aggressive with my repairs, and I need a few realms for that, one of them the Chaos Dimension."
"So war it is?" Selene asked.
"Yes, we will war against a few of the most vicious Dimensional Lords," Aragorn affirmed. Their surroundings changed again; this time, they were in Machu Picchu.
"Sigh, I wanted to spend some time with Amara," Selene lamented. "By the looks of things, we won't rest ever!"
"Didn't you just spend 300,000 years resting?" Aragorn asked. One of his eyelids opened to reveal his blue eyes.
"... You have a point," Selene conceded. "However, since I planned to awaken Amara upon our return, I've been looking forward to it, and I already had some preconceived ideas of what I would do afterward."
"What type of secretary plans her vacation without regard for her boss's schedule?" Aragorn questioned.
"Your work mindset is truly capitalistic," Selene scoffed.
"If I had to choose, I would probably say I'm a capitalist, but only because I have little care for the trees in the forest," Aragorn shrugged.
"Is your current dislike, jealousy, resentment, and anger towards humanity influencing your response?" Selene asked with a jesting grin.
"... Maybe a little, but capitalism has a survival-of-the-fittest vibe that I prefer over socialism," Aragorn replied. "Naturally, as proven by history, monarchy is the way to go."
"What?!" Slene asked, scandalized.
"Well, if we measure the level of a civilization by its current state, then yes, the new political movements would triumph over the backward monarchy; however, based on its history, humanity has favored monarchies longer than democracies, hasn't it?" Aragorn asked with a chuckle.
"That's such a biased way of measuring progress, you truly are disliking humanity, aren't you? I doubt Hestia even considered how much risk she placed them in with her willfulness," Selene commented.
"Well... Maybe you and I shouldn't talk about willfulness," Aragorn, slightly ashamed, advised.
"Fair point... And now that I think about it... Most of everyone on the Drachantheon Therion is as willful," Selne looked away in shame.
"Let's talk about something else," Aragorn suggested.
"When is Arishem arriving?" Selene asked.
"Soon," Aragorn said. "We should convene with the Eternals."
"Ah, they are leaving the planet, right?" Selene asked.
"They'll act as the trainers for other Eternals once the Celestials start implementing my Obelisks in other seed worlds," Aragorn revealed.
"..." Selene didn't follow up; she settled into a deep silence. Aragorn gazed at her for a moment before finishing up with Machu Picchu. Their surroundings changed again, and this time they were in Athens.
"This, what you accomplished here with Tiamut, is something big, right?" Selene asked with uncanny seriousness.
"... Maybe?" Aragorn queried. "Planetary level of impact is not exactly what we consider something big."
"I know that this will only affect countless planets, but if I understood correctly, they'll implement your Obelisks all across the multiverse," Selene explained.
"Ah, yes, then you're not mistaken, the impact of this will reach all Realities with a need to grow a Celestial," Aragorn affirmed.
"That's what I mean... Maybe this will only affect planets, but the range will be multiversal... That's a big deal," Selene said.
"... Yes?" Aragorn replied. "What does it matter?"
Selene reached for the snake coiled on her lap and raised it to her eye level, "At times like this, I can truly comprehend how different we are, Aragorn."
"Was that ever in doubt?" Aragorn asked with a chuckle.
While they had similarities, Aragorn could never lie to himself and claim they were similar.
"... No, but you don't act like what you are, so don't blame me for getting confused," Selene replied after a pause. "I like you like this, please never forget it."
"I'm sorry, I'm Noonasexual," Aragorn succintly apologized.
"... Fuck you," Selene chuckled before planting a kiss on his diamond head.
"No can do, only Noona can fuck me, I just told you, silly vampire," Aragorn replied condescendingly.
Selene rolled her eyes at him. There were plenty of structures that needed Aragorn's maintenance, but once done, they disappeared again, and this time appeared in outer space.
Faint traces of the protective matrix could still be appreciated on Earth's surface, and the destruction caused in North America was clearly visible through the gaps in the clouds.
'What a mess,' Selene pointed out.
'It could be worse,' Aragorn said. 'Last I heard from Pietro, our home was in ruins, and humanity had no hope of recovery without some heavy intervention. Here, at least, they have a good prospect of recovery in 6 to 8 months.'
Selene, after listening to Aragorn, felt something click in place and opened her eyes wide before asking, 'Just for confirmation, you don't plan to carry over your grudge with this humanity to the one on our Earth, do you?'
'... Aren't they all the same?' Argaorn asked, tilting his sepentine head.
'Oh, Abstracts allmighty,' Selene facepalmed. 'Please make that decision after your eyes stop cycling between red and blue.'
'No, well, maybe you have a point, but I also believe I shouldn't walk humanity by hand, they are not toddlers,' Aragorn defended his decision.
'... I can't argue with that, but if civilization is truly done for, maybe you can help one last time,' Selene commented.
'... We'll see, it's not set in dragon ore yet,' Aragorn replied.
Selene and Aragorn observed Earth for a few minutes more before a cosmic flame burst next to them, and Jean Grey appeared.
'Firebird,' Aragorn greeted.
'Aragorn,' Jean approached and took him to her arms. 'Hello, Selene.'
'Jean, it's been a few centuries, hasn't it?' Selene asked.
'From my perspective, a few millennia,' Jean replied.
'Was the training hard?' Aragorn asked.
'Tedious, but I believe I'm ready for what's to come,' Jean said with a sigh. 'I was informed it was time to deal with the Shi'ar, and that the Kree and a few others joined in the fun?'
'Yes, it's been confirmed by Pietro,' Aragorn nodded. 'Nirn is about to be besieged, and since the Shi'ar form part of the invading mob, this will be left to you.'
'You should be careful of their psionic disruptors,' Selene added.
'Disruptors?' Jean asked.
'Xavier had contact with them, so I once got to experience the 'joyful' sensation of entering a room filled with rampaging psions,' Selene snarled. 'I believe the Shi'ar must have something like that, but powerful enough to disrupt entire star systems.'
'That's inconvenient, but I should still be able to deal with it,' Jean said, thoughtfully.
'Jean has been training more than just her inner Phoenix,' Aragorn added.
'Additionally, I trust my psionic might is near the maximum level allowed inside a Reality,' Jean said proudly.
'So you come to say your goodbyes?' Selene asked.
'I was also informed that I shouldn't approach the reality-warper, so I wanted Aragorn to portal me to Nirn directly,' Jean said while gazing at Aragorn's blue eyes with concern. 'What happened to you?'
'Hestia is staying here,' Aragorn replied listlessly.
'... I'm sorry to hear that, Aragorn.' She hugged him to her face tenderly.
'It's okay, I'll deal with it with the wisdom of my ancestors: It is what it is,' Aragorn replied.
'I see you're not taking this well,' Jean commented.
'I've only thought of desimating humanity twice in the past picosecond,' Aragorn proudly stated.
'That's, actually, quite mature of you,' Jean nodded.
For long enough to have lost count, Jean has shared a psionic link to Aragorn. Every time she dreamt while sleeping, Jean would visit Aragorn's mindscape and remodel it to her will. If there was someone she knew, it was Aragorn.
So she truthfully believed Aragorn was taking the news well if he had only thought about desimating humanity twice in a picosecond.
'I know, I'm trying to have some character development here,' Aragorn nodded, pleased with the compliment.
'I'm proud of you, Aragorn,' Jean added.
To this, Selene couldn't help but stare with a congested expression at the two.
'Let me open the Astral Path for you, Jean,' Aragorn waved his tail, and the portal opened to Nirn. 'Be careful, my Firebird. Don't hesitate to blow shit up if you need to, no matter how many innocents stand in your way.'
It was ruthless but heartfelt advice.
'I'll see you later,' Jean said before planting a kiss on his head, not unlike Selene.
Jean, wreathed in Cosmic Flames, stepped into the Astral Path and disappeared. The portal closed behind her.
Almost an hour later, space warped, shifted, and twisted, and from a black hole, a towering red Celestial appeared.
'Heya,' Aragorn greeted before flying off of Selene's lap and shifting into his draconic form. Selene, in practiced ease, flew towards Aragorn's crown of horns and took a seat below the Eternal Flame.
'Aragorn,' Arishem replied. 'Tiamut informed us it was time.'
'Correct,' Aragorn replied. 'I had my people supplant some of the missing thought energy during the absence of humanity's snapped half.'
'A'Lars' scourge of the Universe, I see even in this Reality, the mistake in our creation caused problems,' Arishem commented.
'To be fair, the whole Eternal with Deviant genes was not that much of an advantage in this Reality, so I wouldn't blame you guys for it,' Aragorn remarked. 'Are we waiting for your servants?'
'I've summoned them,' Arishem replied.
On Earth, as if carried by an instinctual impulse, after the humans gazed upon Arishem and Aragorn, they begrudgingly marched back to the Obelisks.
"Shit! First Thanos, then Thanos again, and now a fucking Moon-size robot! What the fuck is going on?!" a human shouted while kicking and clicking his tongue, towards the nearest Obelisk.
"Are we ever gonna catch a breath? This is too much," another commented while dragging her dogs to the Obelisk she had just walked away from.
"This is simply too fucking much!" one roared at the heavens.
'Huh? You didn't cloak yourself?' Aragorn asked after observing humanity's reaction.
'Is the local dominant species not accustomed to your presence?' Arishem asked.
'They are, but we look nothing alike,' Aragorn replied. 'Well,' Aragorn looked back towards the panicking humans and grinned with all of his sharp teeth, 'it doesn't matter.'
Moments later, from the Istmus, the Domo emerged and took flight towards Arishem and Aragorn.
The Domo was a massive ship, but compared to Aragorn and Arishem, it looked no bigger than a butterfly compared to a human.
Ajak calmly exited the ship and flew to greet Arishem with a practiced genuflection.
'Ajak, you and your team have exceeded expectations,' Arishem congratulated. 'The reports submitted by Phastos on the studies of the Obelisks have permitted us to corroborate and adapt Aragorn's invention to our craft.'
'I sort of made them with your technology in mind, obviously, my Obelisks would match your craft,' Aragorn grumbled at the side.
'Druig's studies on Aragorn and the Therions' mentality have been enlightening,' Arishem continued.
'Oh, Aniki, give me patience,' Aragorn prayed.
'Despite the challenges presented by the external interference, your team completed its mission and more. I'm pleased with your results, Ajak,' Arishemed finished.
'I'm going to assume those challenges were the Deviants,' Aragorn commented.
'You look like a proper dragon.' Druig privately reached out to Aragorn. Arishem continued in the background, discussing with Ajak.
'And you look like a proper alien in your Eternal garment and inside the Domo,' Aragorn smiled, though in his draconic form it looked less like a smile and more like a snarl. 'So? Happy to leave humanity behind?'
'I couldn't be more overjoyed,' Druig replied. 'I won't say I won't miss you, though. And your Duskari. I found peace during the last centuries among your people.'
'They are quite the pleasant gremlings,' Argaorn nodded. 'Is that a hydromel I see stored in that room?'
'... I won't deny that either,' Druig replied.
'Hahahaha!' Aragorn cackled. 'Hey, tell Sersi I'll miss our moral debates.'
'Hah!' Druig scoffed. 'That one is currently unavailable. She was crying herself to dehydration, the last I saw her.'
'That's understandable. I got reports of Phastos tearing during his goodbyes with the Duskari,' Aragorn added.
'The Imperium is really... wonderful. You should be proud of what they built under your guidance,' Druig said.
'Thank you, most of the praise should be for my Therions, but I do take pride in the Imperium, even if I was not personally involved that much,' Aragorn nodded.
'It's time,' Arishem interjected. Ajak floated towards the Domo and Arishem, then warped the ship away.
'Alright, so, as I've informed you, once the Celestial is ready for the Emergence, all they have to do is convey their will to the network of Obelisks,' Aragorn informed.
'Don't panic.' He also sent this communication to the minds of all sapient beings on Earth.
'The process can be started from outside with the correct authority, but for this trial, we'll have Tiamut convey their will,' Aragorn added.
Arishem and Aragorn stared at Earth for three long seconds, but nothing happened until something ethereal became visible around Earth.
It slowly gained form and color, and it became clear that it surrounded Earth like a second spherical layer. Except it was not a smooth sphere, it shifted, spiked, pulsed, ondulated; it was almost as if it were alive.
Dreams, nightmares, misplaced faith, belief without a receptor, thoughts, objectives, and voices, it was made of all psionic that was and had been Humanity: the Noosphere.
It could also be called Humanity's Soul, not in the sense that it represented the soul of humankind, but in that it was the soul born from civilization.
Then the flames burning bright atop all the Obelisks shone with increased intensity.
Celestials were more than the armor that housed them; Celestials were shapeless energy residing in a vessel. While the noosphere provided the needed sacrifice, the Obelisk helped shift Tiamut into their energy form before ejecting them from Earth without cracking the planet.
So, when the Noosphere wriggled violently before dispersing and dropping towards the planet in a harmless rain of psions and various not-categorized energies, the first part of the Emergence was completed: the sacrifice.
Below the mantle, Tiamut received the nourishing energy, and its Emergence was kick-started.
Naturally, a Celestial is most vulnerable at the moment of their birth. This was why Sersi could transmute a being so high above her level with some effort. This was one of the reasons a Celestial would always emerge while donning their armor: for protection.
So it bordered on the realm of miracles for Aragorn to be able to build a planetary construct that forced the emerging Celestial out of their solid form while protecting them.
Energy was an abstractum, something that didn't exist in the material plane, and normally it was not visible. Its effect could be seen, for example, when electricity ionized air and the electric arcs became visible. It could be argued that the only exception was the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, but even then, it was accepted that energy was not visible.
However, when Tiamut, a being that could create celestial objects, emerged from Earth in a pulse/wave of energy, even the mortals saw how something visible emerged from under their feet and converged on the Obelisks.
Then, the structures that had been known for their blackness since time immemorial began to softly glow in an amber, warm light. The glow intensified from the bases to their tips in a pulsing motion, the frequency increasing with each second, until all that energy was ejected to the outside, outer space.
From outside, it was as if Earth were a flaming sphere and all the flames were converging on the top of the sphere, the North Pole Obelisk, and then this flame had been ejected, free from Earth.
The agglomeration of energy shifted and took form, slowly becoming Tiamut, the Dreaming Celestial.
'...'
'...'
'...'
For a moment, the three beings stood in silence, Arishem and Aragorn evaluating Tiamut with their senses, and Tiamut evaluating its body, making sure nothing was misplaced or fused with something it shouldn't.
'Say something,' Selene whispered to Aragorn's mind.
'Well?' Aragorn asked. 'Any discomfort, anything missing, damaged, replaced with something else, or any problems whatsoever?'
'... No. I feel complete. No concerns to report,' Tiamut replied.
'It worked,' Arishem affirmed.
'Oh, Celestial of lacking faith!' Aragorn lamented dramatically out loud.
'How many uses can the matrix withstand?' Arishem asked.
'I don't know how resilient your Cosmium is, compared to my Dragon Ore, but my Obelisks, with proper maintenance, can withstand five to seven Emergences,' Aragorn replied.
'With proper care, we won't have to harvest the planet's life force with each Emergence,' Tiamut commented.
'I also taught Ajak's team how to handle maintenance, aside from adding it in my report,' Aragorn added.
'... We will implement this,' Arishem declared.
'It's only logical,' Aragorn replied, and Tiamut nodded.
Without goodbyes, given that they were unnecessary, Arishem and Tiamut warped away in a black hole.
If the giant 'robots' outside Earth, and the lightshow, didn't freak the humans, the massive black holes did.
Aragorn nodded, pleased with a good job done, and shifted to his girl form. 'I'll leave preparations in the Libralisk to you,' she told Selene.
'Don't worry, I'll take care of it,' Selene said before being swallowed by a portal.
Aragorn then teleported to Stark's lake house.
She found the family of three observing the sky; they had been clearly gazing at the Celestial ordeal.
"I'm leaving," Aragorn said. Her voice startled the three before Morgan ran towards her and hugged her tight.
"Aragorn!" Morgan chirped. "This one is cute!" She declared with a giggle, eyeing with childish curiosity her girl form.
"I'm glad you like it, Pipsqueak," Aragorn said while returning the hug and patting her head. "You've grown, I'm pleased." Her eyes shifted golden for a fraction of a second.
"Dad said I'm the picture of healthy," Morgan beamed happily. "Mom said you blassed me."
"I certainly did," Aragorn nodded, her twintails bobbing with the motion.
"Where are you going?" Morgan asked, remembering what Aragorn said in greeting.
"Home, War, whichever work," Aragorn replied with sincerity.
"War?" Margan furrowed her brows. "Like the one that makes the ground shake?"
"Exactly," Aragorn confirmed. "Someone made a mess of my home, and I need to return."
"Will you be gone for long?" Morgan asked.
"I don't know. I planned to never return, but now I'm leaving a piece of my heart in the Libralisk," Aragorn said. "So maybe you'll be seeing me around."
"Is Goddess Hestia truly staying?" Virginia Potts asked. Stark made silent signs to cut it out and not speak a word more.
"... To my mortification, yes," Aragorn replied, her eyes a dark blue with red accents.
"I'll feel safer with her here," Virginia said.
"... Maybe," Aragorn curtly said, her eyes now red with blue accents.
"A-Are you here for my reactor?" Stark interjected, afraid of things turning... Aragornic.
"Yes," Aragorn nodded. "I said I would give you something to strive for before I leave."
Aragorn made a motion and pulled out a glowing flat rectangle. It was about as big as the length of her palm.
Without warning, she flicked the rectangle to Stark's chest, and it sank into him.
"Wha-What?!" Stark exclaimed, ripping his shirt open. Morgan giggled at the 'sillyness' of her father.
"I don't have a name for it, so let's call it Posteritas," Aragorn commented while, discreetly, without the mortals noticing, fusing another rectangle to Morgan. "The answer to most questions a curious mind like yours may ask can be found through its study."
"How do I even activate this?" Stark asked.
"You'll need to discover it yourself," Aragorn smirked while petting Morgan.
She leaned toward her ear and, while the adults were distracted, whispered, "I'll see you when I see you, Morgan. Take care of your mom and dad." She planted a smooch on her cheek and disappeared, leaving behind a giggling Morgan.
She appeared in New Asgard, in the 'throne room'. Thor had already left the planet with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Brunnhilde had been officially appointed as the new king. 'Officially', because she had already been running New Asgard ever since Thor fell into depression and later recovered.
"Aragorn," Hulk greeted before Brunnhilde discovered her intrusion. "Here to say goodbye?"
"It is so," Aragorn confirmed.
"I wish to visit your home in the future," Hulk said.
"Mmmm, I don't think that's a good idea," Aragorn said. Through her mind, all the possible scenarios of how her fucked up Doomed Reality could mess with the Extreme Gamma running through Hulk's veins flashed rapidly. "But I'll be visiting, for sure."
"Ah... Hestia, right?" Hulk asked.
"I can't believe you're not manipulating her into accompanying you, Shifu," Brunnhilde commented.
"She gave me no time," Aragorn snarled. "It came out of nowhere. I don't spy on my loved ones, and she knew it."
"We'll take care of her, Aragorn," Hulk said, placing a reassuring hand on her tiny shoulder by comparison.
"I know. Not only you... As much as I despise Humanity at the moment, they'll also do their best to take care of her," Aragorn mellowed down. "Anyway, I came here for something else."
She appeared in front of Brunnhilde and placed a hand over her womb. "There, whatever child you conceive tonight will carry my strongest blessing. Congratulations in advance."
With that, Aragorn disappeared, leaving behind the wide-eyed couple.
This time, she reappeared in the Isthmus.
"Grandfather," Mindee greeted her. "Or Grandmother today?"
Aragorn shrugged and shifted to his male form before greeting Mindy.
"Hugging the other's tails is not considered an acceptable form of greeting," Mindee chided.
"This is how we did it in my time, brat," Aragorn grumbled, his voice muffled since he was smothering his face in Mindee's tails.
"Are you here for Phase 1 of the Great Moving?" Mindee asked.
"Yes, I want to see the fruit of my wishes," Aragorn replied. "It'll start in a few minutes, right?"
"Yes," Mindee confirmed.
While planning the Great Moving, the Drachantheon Therion came up with multiple solutions to migrating the Isthmus; however, all came with their own complications. In the end, Aragorn decided to borrow the Infinity Stones.
He first wished for a copy of the Isthmus' terrain, flora, and fauna without his intervention, with a copy of the Isthmus' Obelisks to be erected on this copy of the Isthmus. Then, he wished the copied Isthmus and Obelisks to be out of phase and to slowly return to the Material Plane.
If timed correctly, only a few seconds will pass from the point where the Isthmus is migrated from Earth to when the copy takes its place.
So, without much fanfare, the Isthmus disappeared from Earth, and suddenly it found itself in Agentum X, one of the Imperium's planets.
A section of this planet had been terraformed and cut into the exact shape to match the Isthmus. So when Aragorn shifted the Isthmus and its island, it fell right in place in Agentum X.
Back on Earth, the oceanic water had barely started to fill in the void left behind when another Isthmus appeared.
Then came the North and South Scales. The outer faces of both Scales were for Humanity's eyes, but the inner faces belonged to the Isthmus.
So, the last wish peeled the inner faces of the Scales, and Aragorn shifted them to Argentum X.
"Should I carve the canals?" Aragorn pondered from Argentum X.
"They don't need your help for that, Grandfather," Mindee commented. "With their level of technology, they should have new canals by the end of next year."
"Alright," Aragorn nodded.
"So, what's left?" Mindee asked.
"Nothing," Aragorn said. "I'll return to say my goodbyes to Hestia when my emotions are better settled. I'm afraid of doing something unkind."
"Finally!" Mindee exclaimed. "To the Barrens we go!"
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{A/N:
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