Socotra, Yemen
The ocean trembled as massive waves battered the shores of Socotra. Deep beneath the planet's crust, something ancient and unimaginably vast had begun to move.
Tiamut was awakening.
For seven thousand years, the Eternals believed they had been sent to protect humanity. They fought Deviants, guided civilizations through history, and watched generations rise and fall.
Then they learned the truth.
Earth had never been their mission.
It had been an incubator.
The growth of intelligent life would provide the energy required for a new Celestial to be born, and when that birth came, the planet itself would be destroyed.
Most of the Eternals refused to accept that outcome.
Sersi more than anyone.
Over the centuries, Earth had become far more than an assignment. It had become her home. The people, their lives, their struggles—all of it mattered to her now.
Ikaris saw things differently.
Long ago, Ajak had revealed the truth to him. He had carried that knowledge in silence for centuries, burdened by a secret he could never share. The revelation had shattered something inside him, yet he never abandoned his faith in Arishem's design.
A world would die.
But countless others would one day exist because of it.
That was the purpose of the Emergence.
That was the cycle.
And when the moment finally arrived, he chose that purpose over everything else.
Now they stood facing each other along the volcanic coastline as the end of the world slowly approached.
The wind howled between them.
Far across the ocean, the sea bulged upward as enormous fractures spread through the water. Something colossal was rising toward the surface.
Sersi watched it for a moment before turning back to him.
"We can still stop this."
Ikaris met her gaze.
His face remained calm, but the pain in his eyes was impossible to miss.
"You know what happens if we do."
"And I know what happens if we don't."
Silence stretched between them.
Thousands of years of memories stood in that space. Centuries spent together, victories and failures, love and loss.
Then golden energy ignited around Ikaris.
Light gathered in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Sersi."
The ground exploded beneath his feet as he launched forward.
Before she could react, he reached her and carried both of them into the sky.
The ocean shrank below them into a distant expanse of blue.
Despite his speed, his grip never tightened enough to hurt her. He wasn't trying to kill her.
He only needed to keep her away.
Away from Tiamut.
Away from the Uni-Mind.
Away from any possibility of stopping the Emergence.
Sersi struggled against him.
"Ikaris!"
"Don't do this."
"You don't have to follow Arishem anymore."
"Yeah, I don't fucking care about any of this."
The lazy, uninterested voice appeared out of nowhere.
A fist followed.
Ikaris never even saw the attack coming. One moment he was flying through the air, the next he was blasted upward, vanishing into the clouds as a shockwave rolled across the sky.
At the same time, Sersi felt his grip disappear.
Instead of falling, her descent slowed unnaturally. An invisible force guided her safely back to the coastline, allowing her to land without injury.
She looked toward her rescuer and immediately recognized him.
Luke.
One of Earth's most powerful heroes.
Meanwhile, Luke's attention was fixed on the gigantic hand rising from the ocean.
"Yeah, this Emergence should stop," he remarked.
A thunderous boom echoed overhead.
Ikaris returned at incredible speed, anger written across his face as golden energy burst from his eyes.
Luke didn't even turn around.
The energy beams stalled before reaching him, hanging motionless in the air as though they had forgotten how to move.
Ikaris's eyes widened.
Luke casually raised a hand toward the ocean.
The towering Celestial hand trembled.
Then reality itself began to distort.
Space flickered around Tiamut's body. The image warped, fragmented, and unraveled as though someone was deleting pieces of existence itself.
The hand disappeared first.
Then the arm.
Then the rest followed.
Within moments, there was nothing left.
Only the ocean remained, rushing back to reclaim the empty space.
Silence settled across the coastline.
"What did you do?" Ikaris demanded.
Luke lowered his hand.
"Well, I erased the Celestial."
His tone suggested he had solved a minor inconvenience rather than prevented a planetary extinction event.
Ikaris clenched his fists.
"Do you understand the consequences of that? Do you know what happens to Earth now?"
Luke glanced at him.
"Do I look bothered?"
His expression remained completely indifferent.
"If something shows up because of this, I'll deal with that too."
The simple confidence behind those words left neither Eternal with an answer.
Luke stretched lazily before opening a portal beside himself.
"So, bye-bye."
Stepping through, he vanished, leaving behind a saved world, two speechless Eternals.
And then he appeared back in New York.
The first thing he saw was a massive singularity balck hole hanging above Avengers Tower.
Luke stopped and stared at it for several seconds.
"Wow. Once again, my worldview is being reaffirmed," he said with a sigh.
He didn't even need to investigate to know who was responsible.
A brief scan told him everything he needed to know, and his expression immediately flattened.
"Yep... I should've just wiped out their entire race."
The singularity continued twisting above the tower while Luke stood there questioning why every time he left Earth alone for a few minutes, someone inevitably managed to create a new disaster.
*****
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