The Eternals assembled in the Australian Outback, the stone dwelling quiet around them. Ajak looked from face to face. "Where are we on the Dragon Balls?"
Makkari signed: Nothing in any uninhabited zone. I covered tropical rainforests, craters, deserts — all of it. No balls. She paused. I did pick up something else, though. There's a speedster operating on Earth now. Nowhere near my level, but fast enough that most people wouldn't see him coming.
Ajak absorbed the news about the Dragon Balls without comment. Another speedster on the planet was almost predictable — extraordinary people kept appearing, one after another, and the only question was whether that acceleration would break the world or save it.
"India came up empty," Kingo said. "I deployed significant resources. Every lead was a fake."
Phastos pulled up his notes. "Nothing for sale online, but I mapped the buyers. S.H.I.E.L.D. was searching. So was Tony Stark, Xu Xialing, and Killian from AIM — before the Paragons took him off the board." He let that land. "The way I read it, a ball ended up either with someone connected to the auction's organizer or with Tony Stark. He was present."
Ikaris straightened. "I can take it from Stark."
"No." Ajak's voice was flat. "We agreed not to interfere with human affairs. We don't steal from them. Full stop."
Ikaris said nothing else.
The remaining members reported in sequence. Each one had nothing. When the room had cycled through, Druig spoke. "I could walk into S.H.I.E.L.D. or Stark's facility without leaving a mark. No fight, no mess, Dragon Ball in hand."
"And cameras on every corner," Ajak said. "Surveillance, robots, AI. The moment you drop the control, there's a recording. You'd expose yourself — and potentially compromise all of us in the process." She shook her head. "Keep searching. If we find a ball before the competition starts, we're still in this. That's the goal." She turned to Makkari. "Get the ship positioned and cloaked near wherever the arena ends up. If the Dragon Ball battle convenes, we've lost our window this cycle. I want us ready to move the instant we're not."
Makkari nodded once.
On the Bus, Coulson set down his tablet. The canvass of the towns near the Rainbow Bridge landing site had taken two days and yielded one usable data point: the Asgardian had charmed a string of men in the area, then left. A few women had filed complaints. No forwarding address, no description beyond very beautiful and foreign.
"She's already gone," he said. "We're behind her."
May kept her eyes forward. "What next?"
"We report it and hand off the local follow-up to another team." He leaned back. "Then we go back to New York. I need to start building the unit properly — right now it's just the two of us, and that won't hold."
May said nothing. She adjusted their heading toward New York.
In Nepal, Smith Doyle stepped out of a Cosmic Cube–assisted portal directly into the Ancient One's office.
Ancient One looked at the wormhole hanging open in the middle of her room, then at Smith, then back at the wormhole. She had seen Karl Mordo flung out into a Sahara sand dune for less. She raised one hand, a portal bloomed at the office exit, and she gave him a look that required no translation.
Smith walked forward, stepped through his own portal — and emerged onto a street in Nepal under a gray sky.
He stood there for a moment. Behind him, a geometric ring of golden light closed quietly. He looked up at the building directly ahead.
She hadn't put him far. Just outside, at the approach to Kamar-Taj.
He went to the door and knocked. A sorcerer answered, looked him over once, and stepped aside. "The teacher said to expect you. Please follow me."
Smith followed him through the corridors and back into Ancient One's office, where he had been approximately four minutes earlier, by a longer route.
He sat down. "My apologies. I was inconsiderate."
Ancient One gestured toward the tea service without comment.
Smith poured a cup and took a sip. Something settled in it — clean, high, faintly mineral. Nothing like the milk-drowned variations he kept encountering in New York. "This is considerably better than what I usually get."
"Everest holy tea," she said. "I'll send you a pound to take back."
"Thank you." He set the cup down. "I should tell you — I'm not here about Kaecilius's invitation. That can wait."
Ancient One tilted her head slightly. "Then you've finally reconsidered the position of Sorcerer Supreme."
"No."
A small pause. "Then what?"
"I have someone I'd like to give access to the library here," Smith said. "A genuine magical talent. I'm not asking you to take her on as a student. Just access to the books. The history of the magical world, the theoretical foundations. Reading material."
He was thinking of Wanda. Left entirely to herself, feeling her way through chaos magic with nothing but instinct, she had eventually achieved things that made the Infinity Gauntlet look like a rough first draft. He had no interest in handing her to Kamar-Taj as an apprentice — that was a different path, with different constraints. But knowledge was something else. If she could build what she'd built in the dark, he wanted to see what she'd build with a lamp.