My steps faltered as I stepped outside and into the shadow of a massive monolith of green marble and golden cosmic filigree. The Domo hung in the air above the Avengers compound, immobile and unsettlingly silent, a singular triangular slab with no windows, openings, engines, or anything else visible that would even indicate that it was a starship at all. It was like Arishem had simply taken a segment of the World Forge and nailed it to the sky. It almost felt absurd that something so imposing could have snuck up on us without detection.

  Man, I bet it had looked super cool when it had decloaked, too. It was a shame I’d missed it.

  Thena and Gilgamesh were standing a small distance away, facing the rest of the Eternals, who were gathered in a roughly triangular formation on the compound’s lawn in the shadow of the looming starship. All of them had turned to look in my direction, which was a bit awkward given that I was too far away to inject myself into the conversation immediately.

  At first, I was a little surprised that I’d drawn all their attention like that, but then I realised it was probably the music. I’d meant it for Pietro, but it also served to announce my own arrival—it wasn’t loud enough that it would drown out anyone who had been talking, but it still definitely would have interrupted proceedings. Oh, god, did it look like I’d given my entrance theme music? That was a little embarrassing.

  Some of them want to use you; some of them want to get used by you…

  Tromping over toward them while they waited was going to make me feel even more self-conscious, and jogging or running wouldn’t exactly have been particularly dignified. Instead, red wisps of energy coalesced in my palms and I lifted off the ground, skimming quickly over the grass, spears still floating around me in formation. I made sure to land just before I reached Thena and Gil, trying to make it clear that I intended to join the conversation, not attack.

  “And this must be Wanda Maximoff,” Ajak said as I touched down, inclining her head in a brief acknowledgement. I could feel her eyes roving over the bloody, golden Celestial designs branded across my chest and arms.

  “That’s me.”

  The Prime Eternal and those that had come with her were dressed in their formal battle armour, each with their own colour scheme emblazoned with Celestial designs and threaded with cosmic energy. Ajak, at the head of the group, was in blue and gold, with a long cape and what I could only describe as a crown on her head. At her right hand stood Ikaris in matching colours, arms folded in front of his chest as he glowered at me, with Phastos in purple and gold to her left. Behind the technopath was Druig in red and black, a slight smile on his face, with Makkari, Kingo, Sersi, and Sprite filling out the back ranks.

  It was an imposing group. Knowing about them was one thing, but actually seeing them all together like this, arrayed against us, made the threat they presented very clear.

  “Cool tats,” Kingo piped up from the back. “Little derivative, though. Who’s your artist?”

  I held my arms out to either side in a come-at-me-bro style pose, showing off the full extent of the markings. “Did them myself, actually. I can’t take credit for the design, but I did learn from the best. Kind of.”

  Ajak looked to Thena. “Ikaris said you’ve been training her?”

  “I would call her my finest student, but that would be giving myself too much credit and her ego too much of a stroking,” the goddess replied. I very maturely resisted the urge to interrupt her with a ‘stroking’ quip and not just because I couldn’t quite think of something funny enough to say. “I’d have preferred more time with her, but what little we’ve had together has been extremely productive.”

  “I see,” Ajak said. “It’s been a long time since you’ve taken on a protégé. It’s a shame that we aren’t meeting under better circumstances.”

  Thena shifted how she was standing and I mentally felt her take a small step backwards, like she was expecting me to take the lead.

  To be fair, I had said that I had a plan here. I didn’t have any illusions about getting everyone out of the compound, but the longer we stalled, the more time Pietro had to try to rescue people. “I mean, that’s sort of your fault, isn’t it? We aren’t the ones that attacked you.”

  Ajak looked between the three of us for a brief moment before responding. “The situation hasn’t been ideal, but that’s why we’re here now—to seek a resolution. We just want to talk.”

  “Oh, sure, that’s why your first move was to mind control everyone in the compound. That makes sense,” I said with a small huff of derision, surreptitiously keeping half an eye on Druig. “Ikaris had a talk with Tony, then he had a talk with us, now you’re here. To talk.”

  Our positioning really wasn’t ideal, with the mind controller on the opposite side of the group and partially behind Phastos and Ikaris, but I wasn’t sure how much better an angle I could get without giving myself away. The Eternals weren’t stupid, and each of them had literally thousands of years’ worth of experience. If I started trying to circle around, it’d be easy for them to realise something was up.

  I had five spears, which meant I theoretically had at least five chances. There was a phantom presence at my shoulder—I wasn’t visually hallucinating Eliza this time, which felt like an improvement, but I could still feel her there. Head, neck, chest… It needs to be fatal. I couldn’t just disable Druig when I struck. Anything less and Ajak would just heal him and we’d be right back where we started. God, it felt so weird and uncomfortable to be standing here, casually planning to murder someone right in front them.

  “What happened to Tony Stark was regrettable. It was not my intent. You understand why it meant that this,” she gestured widely with a hand, broadly indicating the compound, “was the approach we thought best, given the circumstances. We could hardly expect you to welcome us easily after the death of one of your own.”

  The Prime Eternal herself was a massive problem, too. As Thena had noted in our conversation the other day, Ajak was a powerful force multiplier—expending effort and resources to hurt the Eternals didn’t mean anything if we couldn’t get it to stick. Splitting my focus to make a serious effort to get her as well as Druig was obviously a terrible idea and likely to result in getting neither of them, but maybe as a feint to disguise my actual target? I might get lucky, and I really needed a distraction in any case, because the real obstacle between me and Druig was Makkari. She was obviously fast enough to be able to react to and intercept almost any attack, so I needed her to be focused elsewhere or I wasn’t going to get a clear shot at him.

  “Tony’s fine, actually,” I told Ajak. “A little sore, but it takes more than that to put down an Avenger.”

  “He’s alive?” Her eyes widened slightly in surprise, eyes flicking back to Druig momentarily.

  The mind controller gave a dismissive shrug, the corner of his mouth quirking upward. “It’s not like you asked for a list of the people I was controlling.”

  A brief expression of irritation ghosted across her face before she turned back to me. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Look, how do you actually envision the rest of this conversation going?” I asked brusquely. Ajak paused, as if unsure how to respond to that, so I bulled ahead. “What outcome are you hoping to achieve here? Because I can tell you right away that you’re not going to convince the Avengers to stop protecting Earth. Thena? Gilgamesh? How about you two?” I gave them a sideways glance and tilted my head, encouraging them to speak up.

  “She’s right, Ajak,” Gil spoke first, shooting the Prime Eternal an imploring look. “We can’t just stand by and let this happen. We were heroes. I don’t care that it’s part of Arishem’s design. It’s wrong. He’s wrong.”

  “You’ve always led us with compassion and care,” Thena added. “That’s how I know there is a part of you that understands what we’re saying. That knows we should stop this. The people of this world need us. The people of this world, and of so many others besides.”

  “I know it can be hard to see the greater picture from here, after spending so much time among the humans.” Though she stood firm, her voice unwavering, I saw sadness in Ajak’s eyes as she responded. “It’s natural to feel that way. I will not lie and say it’s not a struggle for me, sometimes, as well. I’ve helped many Celestials to emerge over millions of years—we all have.”

  “We have all shared in the deaths of many worlds, you mean,” Thena retorted. I could feel the sharpness of her anger through our connection, though she was keeping it tightly controlled. “Civilisations extinguished. Species wiped from existence.”

  “The cost is high,” Ajak agreed. “But without it, the universe would fall into eternal darkness and there would be no civilisations, no species. Each Celestial that joins the pantheon spends their time paying back the price of their existence a millionfold, helping to create new stars, new worlds, new life. That new life—the bright light that the Celestials carry forward into the future—is the enduring legacy of those that we shepherd.”

  I exhaled sharply through my nose, interrupting. “Honestly, I’m just really surprised to see you standing over on that side, Sersi. Is this really a convincing argument for you? Are you actually okay with all of this—the Emergence, the deaths of everyone on this planet—or did Ajak reset you like she did Druig? And Phastos? What about your family?”

  Phastos’ brow creased slightly—he looked tired, but my words seemed to roll over him without impact. Sersi, on the other hand, visibly flinched, clearly not expecting me to address her directly, her eyes downcast as whatever paper-thin mask she’d put up crumbled away. She looked like she was about to respond, but Ikaris spoke first and her mouth snapped shut again.

  “This is an Eternal matter,” he said, unfolding his arms. “We answer to a higher power, not to you.”

  Behind him, Sersi glanced helplessly toward Druig. The mind controller gave a small, barely perceptible shake of his head.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, Ikaris.” I said his name like it tasted bad in my mouth, then grinned and tilted my gaze to the hand at his side for a moment. “Great fight yesterday, by the way—thumbs up! Handshake? High five?”

  He didn’t respond right away, his expression hardening.

  I shrugged. “Look on the bright side: You’ve got a brand-new hand to break in. Jacking off is probably going to be amazing for a while.”

  Druig had to make a visible effort not to react, lips pressing together in a thin line as he suppressed a smile. Well, at least someone appreciated my sense of humour. Shame I was about to try to kill him.

  “We’re here for Thena and Gilgamesh,” Ikaris said, tight anger in his tone, a threatening glimmer of golden energy appearing in his pupils. “We don’t need to listen to this woman.”

  I bared my teeth in a not-smile. “Careful. You got off easy last time. Round two? Not even Ajak’ll be able to fix what I do to you.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  The Prime Eternal held up a hand. “Enough,” she said, loudly and firmly.

  Druig suddenly straightened and looked off to the side. “They’re doing something.” Even from where I was standing, I could see his pupils cloud over with gold.

  Welp.

  With a flick of my wrist, four of the five spears that were hovering around me streaked forward, ostensibly aimed at Ajak. Thena moved at the same time, golden threads forming nearly instantly into a pair of thin curved swords as she darted toward the others.

  I’d deliberately gone with a wide spread with the spears, hopefully feigning that I wasn’t that good at aiming them—only two were actually ‘on target’, with the third too high and the fourth going wide. It only took a bare fraction of a second for the weapons to close the gap between Ajak and me, but Makkari was already there. The speedster had reacted and moved from her place at the back of the group so fast it was almost like she teleported, easily snatching one of the ‘on-target’ projectiles out of the air and using it to slap the other aside. An instant later, she used the haft of the spear to deflect Thena’s swords, shoving the goddess back.

  Red wisps of chaos magic still clung to the weapons, though, and I snapped my hand shut into a clenched fist. The one Makkari held jerked in her hands, surprising her and pulling her off-balance. Thena capitalised immediately, getting in past her guard and—for a brief fraction of a second—it looked like the goddess of war was about to skewer her. Still, Makkari narrowly managed to throw herself backwards out of the way. While this was happening, the spear she had deflected and the two that were ‘off-target’ changed direction, pivoting midair to converge on Druig from three separate angles.

  Head, neck, chest.

  Ikaris had reacted only a moment after Makkari, but it was enough. I suspected he must have seen the feint for what it was. He only had a short distance to move to shield Druig, catching one of the spears himself and blasting the second out of the air with a brief beam of golden energy, but the third—the one Makkari had slapped aside—came at an odd enough angle that he didn’t have time to stop it as well.

  Even so, Druig had started to twist out of the way. Instead of burying itself in the middle of his chest, the spear caught him in the shoulder with enough force to knock him, spinning, to the ground. Makkari turned toward his sudden shout of pain, eyes wide in surprise and shock.

  I hadn’t stayed still, of course, leaping into the air in an attempt to get over and behind the group, not waiting to see if the first strike worked—I was already positioning for another run at Druig. Unfortunately, Kingo was quick on the draw, patterns of golden energy forming across his hands before he nailed me centre-mass with a pair of energy blasts. My protection spell flexed as it tanked them, the small bursts of chaotic power packing a deceptive amount of punch for their size, and I was knocked reeling.

  Below, Gilgamesh loomed over the distracted Makkari, but he didn’t have a chance to strike as Ikaris shot past her, stolen vibranium spear thrusting forward. Gil aborted his attack, the tip of the deadly spear skidding over the golden lines of one armoured gauntlet, but Ikaris didn’t let that slow him down, ramming himself bodily into the larger man at speed and sending them both hurtling backwards.

  I didn’t have time to recover as Kingo snapped off another dozen shots, peppering me with direct hits and disorienting airbursts like I was a plane caught in the firing arc of an entire military AA battery. My last spear was sent spinning away by an errant blast as I was tossed about like a ragdoll, protection spell straining under the pressure as I scrambled to respond. I flung my hands up, casting a barrier of magic across a wide arc in front of me, trying to give myself a moment’s reprieve from the assault so I could reassess.

  I’d almost completely lost track of the rest of the battlefield already—everything was happening all at once and there were too many combatants moving too quickly to keep everyone in sight. I needed to get out of the air. Flying up had been a mistake, making me a clear target. I was honestly a little surprised that Phastos hadn’t started blasting me as well. Below me, Ajak had rushed to Druig’s side and was kneeling over him, golden light playing over his shoulder as she held a hand over the wound. Next to them, the bloody-tipped spear that had impaled him had been discarded, forgotten, in the grass.

  Golden explosions pockmarked the surface of my shield as I dropped out from behind it like a stone, using magic to rip myself downward and accelerate my fall as much as possible. At the same time, I sent threads of red power to call the fallen spear to my hands, catching it as I dove desperately toward my targets, couching it like a lance and aiming for the base of Ajak’s skull—with enough force, I might be able to overpenetrate and take both of them out at once.

  Something slammed into me, my viewpoint spinning crazily as I hit the ground and tumbled. It took a moment to realise that Ikaris had tackled me out of the air and we skidded across the lawn in a tangle of limbs. He wrenched the spear out of my hands, his elbow catching the side of my temple in a strike that snapped my head back, protection spell protesting.

  I disentangled myself from him just as the sudden sound of shattering glass and shriek of tearing metal heralded the near side of the laboratory building exploding outwards. A pair of figures streaked out into the open air, a smear of red and blue and purplish-black that I didn’t have time to pay any attention to.

  Darting to my feet, I drew deeply on my well of power, gathering a massive amount of magic in my hands. Ikaris’s eyes started to glow—we were still close enough that there was no way I could shield myself, and I wasn’t sure how my already-stressed protection spell would hold up to a full-power blast right now. Instead, I lunged, thrusting both hands forward to unleash a powerful telekinetic burst point-blank in Ikaris’s face, hitting him as hard as I could. He flew backwards, ragdolling into a tumble across the lawn, twin golden beams of cosmic energy raking a destructive path across the side of the compound’s main building and then upwards harmlessly through the air.

  My feet almost went out from under me again as a huge figure slammed into the ground nearby, cratering the lawn in a fountain of grass and dirt. Shuri—nine feet tall and fully purple-hulked out, braided hair whipping wildly around her gamma-distorted features—was already scrambling back to her feet, her eyes clouded over golden with Druig’s power as she bellowed a panther-like roar of challenge that echoed off the buildings of the compound. She didn’t seem to notice me, all her attention focused on the figure taking a moment to catch her breath in the air above us: Carol. The left arm and shoulder of her red-and-blue uniform was a ragged mess of shredded material and blood.

  “Tag!” I shouted at Carol, waving an arm vaguely in Ikaris’s direction. Drawing more magic to my hands, I shot forward, skimming toward Shuri.

  Carol glanced at me, a brief frown crossing her face, then her gaze rose to meet something above and behind me and she was suddenly rocketing past. A crack split the air as she, I assumed, slammed into Ikaris hard enough that I felt it in my chest. I couldn’t risk looking back—taking my eyes off Shuri here could be dangerous—all I could do was trust that Carol had understood and would keep Ikaris busy for a few moments while I dealt with the She-Hulk problem. I didn’t know what was happening with Thena and Gilgamesh, but maybe we were winning?

  I’d hoped that hitting Druig earlier might break his control over everyone, but it didn’t seem like it had. Why was Carol not mind-controlled? Had Druig’s attention lapsed on some people but not others? Or had Carol resisted him somehow? Of everyone else in the compound, she was the only one who I thought might have some degree of protection, whether it was an innate thing from her powers or maybe even some sort of anti-psionic training from her time as part of the Kree Starforce. It wasn’t something I could dedicate much more than an errant thought to right now, though.

  Shuri lunged at me and I dropped to my knees and skidded under her arm, her claws raking the air just above my head. Reversing direction, I used a burst of magic to bounce myself into the air and caught her in a crude chokehold from behind, one bicep around her throat while my free hand went to her temple. The purple mutate bucked wildly, reaching up to tear at me with one hand. Backed up by Hulk-level strength, her vibranium-sharp claws immediately started ripping through my spell, my shoulder and back blazing with sudden pain. Even as they did, though, Shuri faltered as my magic took hold, sinking to her knees before collapsing bonelessly to the ground, her mind shutting down.

  She started to shrink, musculature popping as she returned to normal. I rolled sideways off of her, letting out a sharp hiss through my teeth as the bleeding wounds on the back of my shoulder rubbed against the ground. My protection spell was still mostly intact after that. I turned my attention to fixing it up, hoping I could spare at least a few seconds before I needed to jump back in.

  “Phastos!” I heard Ajak shout.

  Nope, no time. I started to clamber back to my feet, then let out a strangled yelp of surprise. Cold metal clicked into place around my wrists—a pair of disconnected, intricately ringed manacles that seemed to appear from nowhere at all a bare instant after they had already clamped into place. The glimmers of red energy in my palms winked out. The thread connecting my well of power to my protection spell severed, the enchantment immediately fizzling entirely.

  I hadn’t quite gotten my feet back under myself yet either and, before I could, something unseen slammed me back down onto the ground. The air flickered slightly and Sprite was suddenly there, straddling my chest, a dagger pressing against my now-unprotected throat.

  I froze. What.

  Instinctively reaching for my magic yielded… nothing. I couldn’t get a good look at what had clamped around my wrists without moving, but they were obviously Phastos’ design. I didn’t know he could make anti-magic handcuffs. This was fucking bullshit.

  “Thena, Gilgamesh, stop! Now,” Ajak commanded from somewhere out of sight. The way my head was positioned, I only had a partial view of the battlefield.

  “Hey…” I said. “Sprite… uh.” Well, this was embarrassing. Of all of them… Sprite? Sprite had taken me out of the fight?

  “You tried to kill Ajak.” The child-like Eternal leaned in slightly, her voice low and deadly quiet. “You tried to kill Druig. You hurt Ikaris.” The blade pressed a little harder against my throat.

  Message received. Note to self—in future, do not underestimate the invisible murder goblin.

  Despite her child-like frame, Sprite was still an Eternal, with all the enhanced physicals that came along with that. If I tried something, there was a good chance that she’d be able to just cut my throat before I could push her away.

  In the air, Carol blazed with fiery traceries of energy as she slammed into Ikaris again, causing a shockwave that I once again felt deep in my chest as it flattened the grass around us. The Eternal went flying out of sight, then Carol turned and looked in my direction and hesitated. With her attention focused on me, though, she didn’t see Phastos—on the ground below and behind her—thrust one of his hands skyward. I tried to shout a warning, heedless of Sprite’s blade at my throat, but it was too little, too late.

  Thick golden ropes of power caught Carol’s ankle and she was pulled up short, the rings of Phastos’s gauntlet exploding up the connection and wrapping themselves around her leg. A bare instant later, the bindings sent out further conduits of cosmic energy of its own, even more complicated arrangements of rings seeming to unfold into reality as the apparatus anchored itself to the ground in a half-dozen places. At each anchor point, complex golden Celestial designs spread out through the grass.

  Carol wheeled around, trying to pull her leg free, but Phastos leaned back, holding her in place for a moment before wrenching his arm downward in a movement that ripped her from the sky, slamming her into the lawn hard enough to send up a plume of churned earth. As the dirt cleared, I could see Carol struggle to get to her knees as the rings of Phastos’s device spread up her body, binding her legs, arms, wrists and waist. The technopath flicked his hands and more rings were sent to join those already on her, clamping around her shoulders, her chest, and her neck as they firmly bound her to the ground with solid ropes of cosmic energy.

  She clenched her fists, fiery traceries of burning yellow and orange once again playing over her skin before fading away, the chaotic energy drawn directly into the golden cosmic energy binding her. Her eyes widened in panicked surprise and she started struggling uselessly against the restraints. Phastos walked up to her as the apparatus continued to visibly draw energy out of her body, pulsing and seething as it syphoned her power away. She let out a hiss of pain and effort, unable to pull herself free.

  Phastos’s gauntlets expanded out into orbiting arrays of metal devices large enough that they nearly fully obscured both of his arms. “I don’t know where you stole that power from,” he commented, face set into a grim expression. “But it doesn’t matter. Humanity’s proven incapable of using that sort of power responsibly. I’ll be taking it now.”

  My blood ran cold, a tightness settling in the pit of my stomach. That was it, then. We were fucked.

  Trying to fight the Eternals as a group was so fucking unfair. Couldn’t resist Druig? Game over. Want to try to catch them by surprise, hit them hard and fast? Makkari was faster. Want to overwhelm them with brute force? Ikaris was brute force-y-er. Want to try engaging from a distance or from the air, instead? Hi, Kingo! Didn’t manage to one-shot one of them? Ajak immediately gets them back to 100 per cent. Sersi gave them access to whatever raw materials they needed, with Phastos and Sprite being versatile and tricksy enough to cover any more unusual situations. Even with Thena and Gilgamesh on our side, it still felt like the rest had an answer to absolutely everything.

  When it came down to it, the Eternals weren’t like the Avengers. They weren't a disparate group of heroes drawn together by circumstances. They were a well-oiled machine, a set of specialised tools designed to work together and complement each other.

  “Hold. We yield!” Thena said, her voice ringing out loudly and clearly from just out of view.

  It was annoying, not being able to see everything that was happening. Even trying to turn my head a little bit would risk accidentally cutting my throat open on Sprite’s dagger. At the edge of what I could see, however, behind Phastos and Carol… orange threads of sparking sorcerous energy came together into a trio of portals, revealing figures beyond.

  Despite our position, a small spike of probably-unwarranted hope surged in my chest. “Cheers, love,” I murmured quietly in a faux British accent. “Cavalry’s here.”