Look What You Made Me Do (MCU)

Chapter 93

I channelled a thread of magic into my sling ring, whipping my hand around in the now-familiar motion that completed the ritual to summon a portal. First, I decided to focus on Gilgamesh, even though Thena would have likely been a more reliable target. Gil had died halfway through the Eternals movie and I was only moderately sure I could recall his features and presence well enough to open a portal to him, whereas Thena had significantly more screentime and was played by an actress I was extremely familiar with—but that was counterbalanced by the fact that a portal suddenly sparking open may well be enough to startle her into a fit of Mahd Wy'ry.

Still, the two Eternals did live together, so there was a solid chance they'd be in the same place in any case. Accordingly, Steve had his shield at the ready and Pietro was bouncing on his heels, set to rush into action if needed. Thena was strong and fast—she'd gone toe-to-toe with Ikaris for a little bit, managed to near-fatally stab Makkari during an attack, and I honestly had no idea how well vibranium would stand up to a weapon formed of pure cosmic energy. Nat was suited up and ready as well, of course, but I doubted she'd be any help at all against Thena. If she did lash out, it'd be mostly up to Pietro, Gilgamesh and me to deal with it.

Nothing happened.

Ah well, I'd thought that that might be the case. I switched over to Thena, fixing an image of her in my mind, and tried again.

Still nothing.

Frowning, I repeated the gesture a few times, but the magic didn't take; it couldn't find its target. "Portal's not working. Can't get a lock. I think the Eternals might be warded or have other protections," I said aloud, dropping my hands to my sides and shooting a sidelong glance at my companions.

"Makes sense," Nat said. "Considering what they are."

"If I remembered what their home looked like, I'd just open a portal directly, but… Give me a second. I'll use the Mind Stone, instead."

A lot of the time, the Mind Stone's power to project someone mentally across space, while cool, just wasn't all that useful compared to all the other tools I had at my disposal. Most recently, I'd tested whether I could use it to project to Thor (nope, couldn't get a lock on him) or Carol (yep, projected to the Hoopty just fine). It was a little redundant now that we had a functioning Universal Neural Teleportation Network-enabled comms array and could just call Carol up whenever, but it did let me talk privately with her without any chance of anyone eavesdropping. And do… other things with her. Also privately.

Whatever was preventing me from opening a portal directly to the Eternals might also block the Mind Stone, but I didn't think it would. If my first guess was right, the Eternals probably had some in-built protections courtesy of Arishem, rather than them having actively taken steps to ward themselves against portals. If my second guess was right, an Infinity Stone would hopefully be able to bypass those protections. It was a tool of the Celestials, after all—their creators. Even if that wasn't specifically the case, I'd used the Stone once before to bypass lesser wards that blocked portals.

"Alright." Steve nodded. "Be careful."

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and brought my hands back up, this time framing the pendant at my neck as I reached threads of chaos magic into the Infinity Stone to tap into its power. My consciousness started to bloom outwards, picking out the minds around me as glimmering points of light. Fixing a mental picture of Thena in my mind's eye, I cast the Stone's power out, searching for her. My consciousness meandered, directionless, across the planet for a time, passing by constellations of minds. The previous times I'd done this, there'd been a connection within a few seconds, but that didn't seem to be happening this time. If this didn't work, we were going to need to take some time to re-think our approach.

A long minute passed as I tried to direct myself in what I thought was the general direction I would find the Eternals, focusing on a mental image of Australia and casting my consciousness across it. Ignoring the glimmering along the coasts, I headed inland. There was a moment where something seemed to tug on my perception, as though the Mind Stone had felt something and was being drawn in a particular direction, so I let the sensation lead me.

A pair of unusual sparks eventually appeared in my perception—thrumming, burning golden light, complex and multilayered in a way that other minds I'd perceived with the Stone were not. I was fairly certain this was them, but couldn't tell which was which. Picking one at random, I pushed myself toward it, focusing my will to manifest myself close by.

I found myself beneath a wide-open blue sky, rugged, red-orange earth in every direction dusted with sparse, brownish clusters of stubborn vegetation. In front of me was a tall tree that swept upwards, like it was perpetually caught in an unseen gale. Dozens of wind-chime-like fetishes of bone and carved wood hung from its long branches, and a series of smooth stones and bones were spread out in a circular pattern around it, half-buried in the ruddy dirt.

Thena had been sitting on the bare earth in front of the tree, but reacted essentially instantly as I arrived, standing and turning to face me in a single smooth motion, threads of energy coming together to form a halberd—or at least, an elaborately-patterned wireframe of one, formed from strands of glimmering gold—held loose but ready in one hand. Small traces of light glimmered under her skin.

The Eternal had a lean frame, with toned, graceful limbs and white-blonde hair cascading over her shoulders in loose waves. With her high, sculpted cheekbones and well-defined jawline, she was beautiful in the same flawless way that a statue was. She was dressed casually, in a white, long-sleeved cheesecloth dress that buttoned up the front, cinched with a belt at her waist. Her feet were bare.

"Hello?" she said, cocking her head to one side, her tone guarded and curious at the same time. Her deep-set blue eyes weighed me appraisingly. She'd turned slightly to narrow her profile, ready to explode forward in a sudden attack at a moment's notice.

I held up my hands, palms out, to show that I wasn't a threat. "Hi! Sorry for just popping in like this, Thena—didn't mean to intrude. My name's Wanda."

Carefully, I glanced around. At first, I'd thought the lone tree behind Thena was dead, but I noticed some brown-verging-on-green leaves clinging stubbornly to life. A ways off to my left there was a large homestead, surrounded by a short stone wall. An ancient, metal-strutted windpump was visible toward the other side of the building, its blades turning slowly in the breeze, a few large blue plastic water drums at its feet. There weren't really many other landmarks—just a barren landscape—and I did my best to quickly commit the area to memory.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "This is magic of some kind. It's familiar, though I don't recognise you or it. Why are you here?" Her grip on her weapon tightened slightly.

"My friends and I just want to talk, that's all," I said, trying not to sound nervous as I eyed the halberd. "There's something we need to speak to you and Gilgamesh about."

"Friends." Her tone was flat and her eyes flicked briefly from side to side, checking that we were alone.

"Uh, yeah, the Avengers. I'm with the Avengers."

Thena blinked. "The heroes? The ones who saved…" her forehead creased briefly, then her eyes quickly clouded over, irises and pupils disappearing behind a milky white film. "We can't save them. It's too late. Everyone is going to die." Her voice was quiet, a resigned whisper.

Damn. It was a little annoying that I'd triggered her so quickly, but it wasn't like it was entirely unexpected. Having someone just pop into existence had put her on high alert, then the reference to heroes who saved the world… I probably could have handled that better. "Uh, okay, you're having a moment, that's fine, we'll give you some space and—"

I was cut off as she lunged forward, bringing her weapon down in a wide arc in an attempt to bisect my torso. She was fast, but I twisted to the side out of the way. Before I could react further, however, the sharp head of the Eternal's weapon slammed into me. The projection broke and I jerked back into my body with a gasp, one hand flying up to my chest. I could still vaguely feel where I'd been stabbed.

"Wanda?" Steve asked, voice tight with concern. Nat had taken a step toward me as well, but I waved them off.

"I'm fine," I said, flashing a quick, if slightly strained, smile. "Thena's just feisty. I told you she might lash out."

I paused for a moment, trying to play the last few seconds back in my head. Thena had swung, I'd dodged, but then I wasn't even sure what had happened, beyond the fact that she'd stabbed me. Had her initial stroke been a feint, or had she just read my movement so easily that she'd changed tack partway through, or was her follow-up just that fast? That was a little unsettling. And her power… I needed to get a better look at it. Seeing it up close, there was something about it that had seemed familiar, somehow.

"I think I got a good enough look at where they are to portal there, now. We should give them a bit—hopefully Thena will snap out of it quickly."

We waited for a good fifteen minutes or so. Once I'd judged that sufficient time had passed, I focused on the homestead I'd seen and spun up a portal, red wisps of energy coming together almost instantly.

Crossing the threshold, we stepped out from the cool, New York night into the heat of the Australian Outback, near the stone wall bordering Gilgamesh and Thena's home. Beyond the wall, halfway between where we'd emerged and the tree that Thena had been sitting at when I'd arrived, were the two Eternals. It looked like Gilgamesh must have joined Thena at the tree—investigating what had happened and settling her down—and our arrival had interrupted their walk back to their home.

Gilgamesh himself was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with powerful arms, a barrel chest, and short, dark hair and trimmed stubble that framed East Asian features. He took a quick step forward to interpose himself between us and Thena, shrugging as golden energy formed wireframe gauntlets around his fists and forearms.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded, obvious caution in his gaze as he sized us up. There was a strange, almost tangible solidity to his presence—I knew the Eternals were all physically strong, but looking at Gilgamesh made me feel like punching him would be about as effective as punching a solid steel wall.

"Hi there. I'm Steve Rogers," Steve said, raising his voice a little and hefting his shield demonstratively as he took a step around me to make himself more visible.

"The Avengers?" Recognition flickered across Gilgamesh's face, though he didn't relax at all. "What are you doing here?"

"We're just here to have a conversation," Nat chimed in, making a small, disarming gesture with her hands. "We don't want a fight."

"Bit late for that," Gil groused, but his stance loosened a little bit as he glanced back at Thena, making sure she wasn't about to have another episode.

"Sorry," I said, apologetically. "My fault. I popped in pretty suddenly. I know she can be set off pretty easily sometimes."

Gilgamesh looked at me for a moment, his brow creased. "You do, do you?" There was a small amount of suspicion in his tone. "What do the Avengers want with us? How did you find us?"

"Is Thena alright?" Steve asked. "Does she still need some time to recover? We'd really like to talk to the both of you."

Gil glanced back again, looking unsure. Thena met his eyes and something silently passed between them before she gave him a reassuring nod. "I'm fine, for now," she said, raising her voice and stepping up beside the other Eternal. "I didn't mean to attack you, if that's what happened."

"I know," I said. "Mahd Wy'ry. That's why we're here, actually." God, I hated the name of it. Put me in mind of someone talking in a New Zealand accent. She's mad weary, bro.

The two Eternals exchanged another significant look. "You know what Mahd Wy'ry is?" Gilgamesh asked.

"We know a lot of things," I responded. "Can we talk?"

"Alright. Let's talk," Thena said, placing a hand gently on Gil's arm. Or at least, she would have—her hand stopped a good inch away from his body, his summoned armour preventing the touch.

With that, his stance loosened and he let his power dissipate. Warily, the two Eternals walked up to us. Gil jerked his head toward their house. "Come, sit."

We followed them to a half-covered patio area off to one side. The walls of the homestead were made of stacked, irregularly-shaped rocks facaded with mud, heavily eroded by weather and time. A large, mud-brick oven sat against the exterior wall of the house, with a set of massive, six-foot-tall sealed terracotta pots placed along a half-wall that partially enclosed the space. A heavy wooden table sat in the middle of the patio—the wood was rough-cut and uneven, pitted iron brackets holding it together; it looked ancient. Around the table was a low wooden bench as well as some mismatched wooden and discoloured plastic chairs.

We sat. I took a deep breath, looking between the two Eternals. "My name is Wanda Maximoff," I started. "I'm a witch. A seer. I know who you are. Gilgamesh, whose epic—woven by Sprite—is still spoken of as legend today. And Thena, sometimes mistaken as Athena. Goddess of war. You shepherded humanity through the early ages of our development, together with the other Eternals. Protected the world from the Deviants at the direction of the Prime Celestial, Arishem. You fought alongside Asgard in the battle of Tønsberg, defending the world from an army of frost giants. And many, many other deeds, over the years."

Gil's forehead creased, his expression thoughtful, and he squinted at me a little. "Huh. I knew that some witches were seers, but that's…"

"You know a lot about us," Thena said with a small nod. "But we don't know you."

"Well." Gil shrugged and tilted his head toward Steve. "We know who you are, obviously. Captain America and the Black Widow. You're famous." He shot a questioning look at the fourth member of our group. It made sense, I supposed, that they weren't completely up on the latest celebrity news.

"Pietro, Wanda's my sister," he introduced himself with a grin. "I'm fast. Wanda says that one of you Eternals is even faster than me, but I don't believe her."

The ghost of a smile flickered across Thena's face and Gilgamesh let out a small snort of amusement. "No matter how fast you think you are," he said. "Makkari's faster."

"She really is," I agreed, ignoring the stubborn look that had appeared on Pietro's face. "But she's not why we're here."

"Mahd Wy'ry," Thena said, fixing me with an intense stare.

"I'm not just a seer," I explained. "I have a lot of power and a decent amount of experience dealing with problems of the mind. I think I might be able to help you—cure you, even."

Thena broke eye contact to look at Gilgamesh again. Something unspoken passed between them, then Gil turned back to us and put his hands on the table firmly. "We won't fight for you, if that's what you're trying to accomplish with this. We are forbidden from involving ourselves in human conflicts."

I shook my head. "No, I know. Honestly, we are just here to help. We're not asking for anything in return."

Steve leaned forward a little bit. "Wanda helped a friend of mine. Bucky. HYDRA tortured him, broke his mind, controlled him for nearly seventy years. Used him as a weapon. She helped him break the conditioning so he could start to heal and move forward."

"And my sister, Yelena," Nat added. "Chemical subjugation of brain functions, not just psychological conditioning. Essentially mind control. Wanda broke through it, rewired her brain so she could escape."

Gilgamesh sighed and leaned back a little. "…Well, if that's truly why you're here, then you've come for nothing. There is no cure for Mahd Wy'ry. The only way Thena's mind could be healed would be if her memories were erased, and we won't do that."

"I've had a good life," Thena said, her voice quiet. "I want to remember all of it."

"You will, I swear. I'm not talking about erasing your memories—I wouldn't do that. Just because you don't know of a cure doesn't mean one doesn't exist. If you'd be willing to let me examine you, there's a good chance I could help."

"I appreciate your willingness to try, but you're only human," she said with a small shake of her head.

"You know of Ajak?" Gil asked.

I nodded. "Your leader."

"If you know of Ajak, then you may also know she's one of the greatest healers in the universe," he said firmly. "Why would you believe you could help where she can't? Where all of our knowledge and technology can't?"

Raising my hands, I framed the locket hanging at my neck. A barely-visible wisp of red magic clicked it open and the Mind Stone floated out, faintly glowing with golden energy as it hovered in midair. "Because I have this," I said confidently.

The two Eternals stared at it for a moment. "Is that…?" Gil trailed off.

"One of the Infinity Stones? Yep. The Mind Stone, specifically."

He blinked. "Huh. No shit," he said, shaking his head. "I thought they were a myth. I can feel that."

Thena looked from the Stone back to me, eyeing me consideringly. "And you think you have enough strength to wield it? One of the lost tools of the Celestials?"

"I do. I have. I've been using it for a little while already, actually." I gestured toward my companions, bringing the Stone back into its locket and telekinetically closing it. "Yours wouldn't be the first mind it's helped me heal."

The Eternal's eyes bored into mine and she tilted her head slightly to one side. "You're no ordinary witch."

I grinned. "No… I'm an exceptional witch."

"No. There's something more." Thena's tone was thoughtful as she continued to stare. Her gaze was intense and a little unnerving—it felt a little like I was being sized up by a tiger, under consideration as a candidate for its next meal—but I met it evenly. "An ember of cosmic power of some kind. Not just from the Stone."

I blinked, caught off-guard by that. "Huh?"

She turned back to Gilgamesh, who gave her a questioning look. "I think I would like her to try," she said to him.

The large man's brow furrowed. "Thena, are you sure?" he asked, concern leaking into his tone. In response, Thena placed a gentle, reassuring hand in the crook of his arm. "…I don't want to risk losing you."

Thena looked at me again. "I'm sure," she said simply.

"Oh," I said, pausing. "Could I ask a small favour, first? Could you use your power again? I just want to see it in action."

A faint look of surprise crossed her face, but she nodded, raising a hand. An elaborate wireframe dagger, woven of strands of cosmic energy, appeared. I wasn't watching her hand, though… my eyes were fixed firmly on her face. As Thena called on her power, glowing shadows played across the surface of her skin, cast by faint traceries of golden energy inside of her. I hadn't imagined it earlier, then.

"Huh," I said.

"What is it?" Nat prompted me.

"You can see the energy she's using." I gestured to my own face, wiggling my fingers demonstratively. "It looks a lot like when Carol uses her powers. Carol's is wilder, though—more primal—where the Eternals' is much more refined and controlled. It makes sense that there'd be similarities; it's all cosmic energy, after all. I just hadn't really seen it up close before."

It was something that really should have been obvious, now that I was thinking about it, but just hadn't clicked in my head. It wasn't exact, but their powers essentially came from the same source. Even Vision, when he'd gone intangible, had had similar golden glimmers of energy through his body. The Celestials used cosmic energy and Arishem was the guy who kicked off the Big Bang and created the Infinity Stones—I wasn't sure if it had been a deliberate act of creation or if the Stones were just a side effect, but still. It made sense that there would be some similarities between the Eternals, Carol and Vision. In a way, they'd all gotten their power from Arishem.

"A woman who wields cosmic energy? A human?" Thena asked.

"Yeah. There was an incident with another one of the Infinity Stones and she ended up getting powers from it."

Gilgamesh frowned. "Unusual."

"Not as unusual as you might think," I said with a shrug. "The Infinity Stones are kind of bullshit—all sorts of weird shit happens around them."



--



Natasha touched Wanda gently on the shoulder, shooting her a quick, encouraging smile as she stepped past and out of the way. Her girlfriend grinned back—she was sitting in one of two relatively sturdy wooden chairs that had been dragged away from the table, already knee-to-knee with Thena in her preferred position for this sort of work. Thick, glowing strands of chaos magic were wrapped around Thena's arms, legs and torso, securing her in place.

Wanda hadn't been keen for a repeat of what had happened the first time she'd gone into Bucky's mind, but neither was she entirely confident her tied-off telekinetic bindings would be enough to keep Thena in check if she had an episode while she was working. Accordingly, Gilgamesh stood vigilantly over his… friend? Lover? It wasn't clear to Nat what exactly the nature of their relationship was, which was unusual. Normally, she could nail that sort of thing in a moment, but she had to admit that the eons-old Celestial robots were, perhaps, just a tiny bit harder to read than the average human.

In any case, Gilgamesh had activated his own power as well, summoning golden energy that formed delicate-looking traceries that hovered an inch above his hands and arms, standing ready to restrain Thena should something go wrong. Despite the power's fragile appearance, Wanda had been very clear that he was a heavy hitter, on par with the Hulk or Carol, when it came to physical strength. The rest of them were standing by as well, with Pietro ready to grab Wanda and yank her out of danger should he need to.

"Close your eyes," Wanda said to the Eternal. "Relax your muscles. Clear your mind."

Thena stared back at her.

Nat did not like the way that woman looked at humans—there was something predatory about it, like she was weighing up the best way to kill them at any given moment. Natasha was trying really hard to ignore it and believe that Wanda knew what she was doing, and that she was right about Thena and Gilgamesh being good people. After a moment, Thena complied, closing her eyes and letting the tension go out of her shoulders.

Wanda did the same, raising her hands to frame the pendant at her neck between her fingers. Wisps of red touched the Infinity Stone, which started to glow more brightly, its golden light visible through the gaps in the locket holding it. A heavy silence fell over the group as they watched, a long few seconds passing with them unable to tell what was happening.

Then Wanda began to scream.

Thinking with Portals

"What does the back of a portal look like?" Pietro asked.

I paused, my forehead creasing as I tried to recall if I'd ever actually seen the back of a portal before. "Huh," I said aloud after a moment. "You know, I have no idea." I'd opened hundreds of portals—why had I never thought to look behind one?

Next to me, Natasha straightened up, glancing between the two of us with a considering expression on her face. "That's a good question. Why don't you check?" There was something about the way she looked at Pietro, a brief flash of the eyes like she was trying to communicate something, but I wasn't sure what.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my sling ring and focused on two points in space in front of me. A quick gesture and a portal sparked into being, red wisps of chaos magic boiling off the twin holes in space. I frowned. I'd intended on opening both facing away from me, but they weren't—I could see myself in both, slightly offset, the two portals clearly both facing toward me. "Well, that's weird," I said.

Pietro snorted and stood up, stepping around to the far side of the portals. The second he could see the backside of them, though, the colour seemed to drain from his face. He stumbled back a pace, his chest shuddering like he was fighting the urge to vomit. "Oh, god," he said, his voice a choked whisper.

Natasha and I both sprang to our feet. That was alarming. Nat was quicker than I was, weaving her way over to the far side of the portals to check on Pietro. As she did, she glanced over her shoulder at the back of the portals and stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes went wide, a panicked look on her face, and she flung up a hand to cover her mouth.

"What the hell?" I hissed, looking rapidly between the two of them. "What?! What's wrong?! What is it?"

"Hey, what's going—" On the far side of the room—behind Pietro and Natasha—Yelena had emerged from the hallway and paused at the scene before her.

Nat whipped her head around. "Yelena, don't!" she interrupted her, an edge of raw panic in her tone, though I couldn't see her expression. Pietro had turned to face Yelena as well.

Yelena looked at them a moment, then she glanced past them to the backs of the portals and her hands flew up to cover her face, a look of horror plastered across her expression. "Oh. Oh, no," she whimpered.

I exploded across the room, tearing past the portals and steeling myself as I turned to face them. On the other side, I saw…

Two portals, hanging in space, seemingly both pointed toward us all. Inside, I could see Pietro and Natasha's expressions as they turned back around to face me—Pietro had a shit-eating grin on his face and Nat was clearly struggling not to laugh.

The backside of a portal was just another portal, in the opposite direction. That made total sense, thinking about it.

Red wisps of telekinetic energy lashed out and the traitors yelped in surprise, laughing and protesting as I seized all three of them with my magic.

I left them glued to the ceiling for the next ten minutes. When I finally let them down, Pietro laughed and said it had been totally worth it.

I put him back up there for another ten.

Chapter 94

The structure I found myself in was so massive that it took me a brief moment to realise that it was a structure at all. Distant triangular slabs of green marble, each as big as a mountain, hovered in interlocking patterns to form walls, threaded through with elaborate circular designs of that spiralled and curved like celestial filigree. The golden designs projected outwards from the surfaces of the walls and curled through the air—not physical mineral, but cosmic energy made manifest; the same sort of formations as Thena and Gilgamesh's powers, though writ on a wholly different scale. Through the gaps between the slabs, I could see countless stars burning brightly against the inky backdrop of space.

I was standing on one of a myriad of paths crossing through the gargantuan space—each a long, wide ramp of the same green marble, slowly rotating and shifting in ponderous patterns as they hovered in empty space, their sweeping, circular paths edged with unrecognisably alien plant growths. In the centre of it all was a device, elaborate and vast, like a many-ringed orrery assembled around a blazing sun to cage it. Raw, untamed power emanated from it—not just heat or force, but something deeper, something that resonated through my very being, as though the essence of creation itself pulsed within its burning core.

I knew this place: This was the World Forge, the place where Arishem, the Prime Celestial, had built the Eternals. This wasn't what I had been expecting to find but, nonetheless, it made sense. Though, faced with a dream/memory/echo of the World Forge… Why was called that, exactly? What else did the Prime Celestial build in this divine megastructure?

It took me a further moment to notice that I wasn't alone. Silent figures hung along the edges of the outer walls, unmoving, each one suspended in a series of flat, golden rings. The vastness of the space made it impossible to make out the features of those furthest away from me, but I didn't need to. All of the ones that were close enough for me to see were very clearly and obviously the same person: Thena. Hundreds of her, all in varying outfits and suits of armour, yet all still her, their open eyes staring sightlessly ahead, filmed over with white.

Why were there so many? Did they represent memories from each world she helped protect? Previous versions of Thena, somehow? But my understanding was that Arishem erased the Eternals' memories after each Emergence, not just locked them away. Then again, my practical knowledge of Eternal anatomy and mechanics was essentially non-existent. What did I know? I knew that Mahd Wy'ry was caused by something going wrong in Arishem's process, with memories of a previous cycle leaking out somehow. Scanning the distant, floating figures, I couldn't see anything obviously wrong, though, so that wasn't a huge help.

As usual when coming into a mindscape, it wasn't immediately clear what I was going to have to do. But the giant sun-orrery-thing in the middle looked big and important, so it seemed like as good a destination as any. I took stock for a moment—the unsupported paths that circled the central structure, passing around, above and below me, were all moving in wide, indirect arcs and it wasn't immediately clear what the best path would be for me to take to get where I wanted to go.

Instead, I shrugged to myself and summoned red energy to my hands. Darting to the edge of the path I was currently on, I thrust my hands downward and bounced myself high into the air, using my magic to spring a good fifty or sixty metres in a single jump. Clearing the gap between marble paths easily, I cushioned my landing with a brief burst of power and continued forward, alternating between jogging and sailing through the air as I took a direct path toward the centre.

I was mid-leap when something enormous rose just beyond the path directly ahead of me. I landed, skidding to a stop, my eyes wide and round as a massive figure lifted itself from the lower levels of the World Forge to loom over me, hundreds of metres tall, at least. The being's body was red, seemingly formed of a combination of craggy stone outcroppings and smoother panels, with fissures and cracks bright with orange-yellow trails of magma. His face was an expressionless, nearly-featureless mask, aside from the six glowing red orbs of his eyes, sunken into deep craters, his gaze pinning me in place.

Oh, fuck. Arishem?!

A hand the size of a building reached toward me, golden traceries of cosmic energy rapidly assembling across the surface of the Celestial's palm. I reflexively called chaos magic to my own hands, thrusting them up to create a wide shield between us. He touched the barrier and it started to fail immediately, an overwhelming crushing pressure pushing down on it. I poured more energy upward to counter him, drawing deeply of the well of power within me, thick wisps of scarlet magic boiling upwards to reinforce my shield.

Okay, not what I was expecting. Time to pull out and… and… I tried to sever the connection—to yank myself out of Thena's mind, to escape—but a golden wall slammed down, somehow blocking my connection and locking me in place. I freaked out, scrabbling desperately to try to break through, to get back to myself, but I couldn't.

I was trapped.

A brief thought floated to the surface, amongst the sudden, raw panic—was this how Eliza had felt, when she'd first entered the systems of Avengers Tower and discovered that she couldn't go back?

The Mind Stone. I needed to use the Mind Stone.

I reached for the Stone, the sensation of drawing its power into me like dousing myself in ice-water. In response, unstoppable golden force stabbed downwards from the palm of Arishem's hand. Elaborately-patterned wireframe rods of cosmic energy embedded themselves into the green marble path, bypassing the arc of my shield to form a wide, perfect circle around me. A moment later, golden beams lanced out of them, crackling with power as they slammed into my body. I screamed.

It hurt. It hurt so much. I had no idea what he was doing to me, but it hurt so much I couldn't breathe. I could barely even think. Desperately, I wrapped the Mind Stone's energy around myself, trying to block the beams—it worked to a degree, taking some of the pressure off, but they were too numerous. It was too much, coming from every direction, paralysing me even as the weight of Arishem's hand continued to crush inexorably downward on my failing shield.

I was going to die here. After fucking everything, I was going to die here.

"Arishem… please, stop!" I begged, forcing words out through the cloud of agony. "I can't—we can just talk! Please!" The intensity of the assault spiked for a moment and I screamed again, pulling hard on the Mind Stone, golden energy clashing with golden energy while the barrier of chaos magic above me buckled and failed. "I… I wasn't going to hurt Thena! I wanted to help! Please! I just wanted to help…"

Suddenly, the crushing pressure disappeared, leaving me shuddering and gasping for air. I doubled over, losing my grip on my magic—the energy dissipated, leaving me unprotected, and a moment of terror stabbed through me as I realised I'd left myself vulnerable and Arishem could simply finish me off.

But he didn't.

Shakily, I raised my head to look up at the massive, expressionless face gazing down at me. YOU TRESPASS, MORTAL. The Celestial didn't have a visible mouth and I wasn't sure he was even really speaking, per se. Rather than hearing his voice, it was more like I felt the words, each echoing within me, a strange weight to them. I had never really understood what someone speaking in all caps would sound like, when I'd read stories like the Discworld novels, but now I felt like I had a pretty good idea. YOU MAY SPEAK THE TRUTH. EVEN SO, YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE. ESPECIALLY NOT WITH A TOOL YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO WIELD.

"I was going to… I was going to try to use it to try to cure Thena's Mahd Wy'ry. I—" What did I say? Was it worth trying to hide what I knew from him? "I know that the Eternals are constructs. Your creations. I know that Mahd Wy'ry is caused by some issue with the process you use to erase their memories between cycles. I thought if there was some damage, I could repair it with the Stone."

There was a long moment of silence as he considered my words, standing motionless as he continued to loom above me. YOU BEAR AN INFINITY STONE AND KNOW FAR TOO MUCH OF MY DESIGN. AMONG THOSE ON EARTH, ONLY AJAK COULD HAVE TOLD YOU THIS, BUT I KNOW THAT SHE HASN'T. HOW, THEN, DO YOU KNOW THESE THINGS?

"I've seen it," I said, licking my lips nervously. "I've seen the future. I know about the Emergence. Tiamut."

YOU'RE A WITCH. A SEER.

That was the story I was going with, anyway. I nodded and straightened up a little, trying not to tremble. Every part of me ached. My well of power had run dangerously low—the shield I'd thrown up to protect myself had taken almost everything I had to stave off the Celestial assault.

"How are you here?" I asked, my breathing starting to return to some semblance of normality. "You can't really be Arishem."

I knew that Ajak had a special Communication Sphere that let her speak directly with Arishem, but Thena shouldn't have that capability. Besides, I was inside her mindscape. This couldn't be Arishem—it had to be some sort of impression or aspect of Thena herself, like the Zola I'd encountered within the depths of Bucky's programming. Or maybe an incarnated metaphor for… I don't know, a security system Arishem had built into the Eternals? Something like that. Whatever it was, though, it was strong.

I AM WHO I AM.

Oh. Well. That wasn't comforting at all.

THE INFINITY STONES ARE NOT MEANT FOR MORTAL HANDS, YET YOU DRAW THE MIND STONE'S POWER FREELY. His 'voice' didn't vary much in tone, but he didn't sound unkind. There was even something strangely gentle about it. YOU SAY YOU WISH TO HELP? VERY WELL. PERHAPS YOU CAN.

"Thank you," I said, sagging in relief. "That's all I wanted."

The Celestial shifted and was suddenly smaller—he didn't shrink, like Scott Lang did, he was just… smaller. It was like one of those optical illusions, where something appeared smaller or bigger depending on how you looked at it in relation to what it was next to. He was still huge, but now he only looked about nine or ten metres tall as he stood on the path alongside me, rather than the hundreds-of-metres-tall monstrosity he'd been when he first appeared. I still didn't even come up to his knee. Even so, I had this weird feeling that if I squinted just right or looked at him cross-eyed, my mind would have a hard time deciding how big he was. I chose not to test it.

I LACK THE ABILITY TO CORRECT WHAT HAS HAPPENED ON MY OWN. THE MIND STONE IS A POOR SUBSTITUTE FOR THE FULL POWER OF THE WORLD FORGE, BUT IT SHOULD SUFFICE FOR THIS TASK. He started along the path, walking away from me. FOLLOW.

I was honestly a little surprised to see him walking, rather than floating through the air, but I supposed the paths existed for a reason. Maybe he just liked walking. I had to break into a light jog to keep up. "Wait, so what's with all the Thenas?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. "I thought you erased the Eternals' memories between cycles."

The Celestial kept walking, his pace measured, as he answered. I DO. THEIR MEMORIES ARE ERASED AND RESET AFTER EACH EMERGENCE. YET TRACES LINGER—HOW COULD THEY NOT? EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE SYNTHETIC BEINGS, MY ETERNALS ARE POWERED BY LIVING COSMIC ENERGY. THEIR SPIRITS ARE DIVINE. WHAT MAKES THEM WHO THEY ARE IS NOT SO EASILY DELETED. NOT EVEN BY ME.

"…Divine spirits? They're gods?"

'GOD' IS A TERM INVENTED BY MORTALS. CELESTIAL EXISTENCE PRE-DATES THIS CONCEPT. I thought I detected a touch of derision in his tone, but it was impossible to be certain. THE COSMIC ENERGY WITHIN THE ETERNALS IS THE SAME POWER THAT BIRTHS CELESTIALS. THAT IS ALL.

Well now, wasn't that interesting? Between this and my own realisations earlier, I was starting to connect a lot of dots about the nature of cosmic energy. I really wanted to have conversation with Thor when he got back about the nature of his divinity.

"Hey, so, while I'm here… I know the Emergence can't be stopped," I lied. "But there wouldn't happen to be some way we can ease the process, would there? Stop the planet from being destroyed?"

NO.

"…That's it? Just 'no'?"

BY NOW, TIAMUT ACCOUNTS FOR A SUBSTANTIAL FRACTION OF YOUR PLANET'S INNER MASS. THE DESTRUCTION OF YOUR WORLD IS NOT SOMETHING THAT CAN OR SHOULD BE AVOIDED.

I bit my lip. "I don't mean to be a bitch about it, but that seems a little callous."

Arishem stopped walking and turned to look down at me. The six red lights of his eyes were featureless—without any discernible pupil, iris or sclera—but I felt them bore into me. I UNDERSTAND WHY MORTAL LIVES ARE PRECIOUS TO YOU. THEY ARE NOT TO ME. THEY CANNOT BE. IF THEY WERE, OUR ENTIRE UNIVERSE WOULD BE A MONUMENT TO GRIEF. I BEGAN BEFORE OUR UNIVERSE EXISTED. YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND MY PERSPECTIVE, NOR WOULD I EXPECT YOU TO.

Though there were still only small variations in his tone, I got the feeling that if he were more human-like, he might've patted me reassuringly on the head.

THE UNIVERSE IS VAST. THE NUMBER OF MORTALS WHO PERISH EACH SECOND IS INCALCULABLE—TO EMERGENCE, TO VIOLENCE, TO DISEASE, TO FAMINE, TO CHANCE… TO A THOUSAND DIFFERENT THINGS. BUT THAT IS NOT THE END. OUR UNIVERSE IS A CONSTANT EXCHANGE OF ENERGY. AN INFINITE CYCLE OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION. YOUR WORLD WILL PERISH, BUT A NEW CELESTIAL WILL BE BORN. HE WILL CREATE NEW STARS, WHICH WILL BIRTH NEW LIFE.

Not-very-reassuring reassurance applied, the Celestial turned from me and continued on. I realised that our path would lead us below the central orrery of the World Forge—I really wasn't sure where he was taking me or what he wanted me to do with the Mind Stone, but I didn't really have any other option but to follow along.

I was trying really hard not to think about the fact that he was still somehow blocking me from returning to my body. We were talking amicably right now, but this shadow of Arishem was still effectively holding me here against my will and I wasn't sure I'd survive another attack if he decided I was a threat. I'd never really had to worry about dying in someone else's mindscape before, but, given the nature of how I was here in the first place, I was operating on a standard you-die-in-the-mindscape-you-die-in-real-life theory.

I sighed. "So we're all just supposed to die, then."

YOU COULD SAVE YOURSELF. LEAVE EARTH. TAKE THOSE YOU LOVE WITH YOU. NOT ALL HUMANITY NEED DIE ALONGSIDE YOUR WORLD.

"I'm not going to just abandon Earth," I said firmly.

WHY?

"…Because."

YOUR MIND IS NOT BUILT TO FEEL FOR THE WHOLE OF YOUR SPECIES. YOU CARE IN ABSTRACT ONLY, NOT IN TRUTH. TO YOUR PERSPECTIVE, YOUR PLANET IS SO VAST THAT YOU COULDN'T COMPREHEND THE DETAILS OF IT IN A THOUSAND OF YOUR LIFETIMES. YOU CARE FOR THE CONCEPT OF YOUR WORLD, RATHER THAN THE REALITY OF IT.

I couldn't quite articulate an argument against what he was saying, but that didn't matter. I wouldn't be human if I didn't act a little irrationally sometimes, after all. "Maybe. Or maybe, just as I can't understand your perspective, you can't understand mine."

REGARDLESS, THE RESULT IS THE SAME.

As we passed beneath the vast, burning heart of the orrery, the space deepened into something stranger. I was having a lot of trouble gauging what the size of this place was, nor was I able to identify when, exactly, the ground beneath our feet stopped being green marble and started being something I had no name for. A solid material darker than the void of space that pulsed faintly with shifting constellations, as though we walked atop the echoes of galaxies.

Monolithic slabs of it stood in silent formation around us, their surfaces etched with designs so intricate it made my head ache to look at them. Between these towering constructs, golden strands of energy wove themselves into shape, assembling vast, shifting models in midair. Some were incomprehensibly complex—rotating spirals of planets, luminous diagrams of what looked like lifeforms in their earliest embryonic states—while others unravelled and re-formed as if adjusting to new instructions.

The energy in the air here felt different from the raw, untamed force of the central device above; this was precision, creation at its most deliberate. Though I had no idea how anything I was seeing functioned, I found myself fairly certain that this was the Celestial equivalent of a workshop or lab of some kind.

We stepped up onto a central dais, its surface inscribed with a complex array of circular designs, and Arishem stopped and turned to me. He held a hand up and, with a flicker of black-and-gold energy, Thena was suddenly hovering in the middle of his open palm—this version of her wore solid golden armour, a red cape draped over her shoulders. A series of golden rings encircled her, and her eyes were clouded over. One of the Thenas from upstairs?

THE RINGS REPRESENT THE BINDINGS PLACED ON THE ECHOES OF EACH CYCLE THAT REMAIN WITHIN THENA. TO SECURE THE ECHO THAT HAS BROKEN FREE, NEW BINDINGS MUST BE WOVEN. I found myself being lifted in the air, suddenly standing in the middle of the upturned palm of Arishem's other hand—right next to the golden-armoured Thena. EXAMINE THE BINDINGS. YOU WILL USE THE MIND STONE TO REPLICATE THEM.

By this stage, I'd mostly recovered from the shock of Arishem's earlier attack and was thinking this through a bit more. This whole thing was starting to seem really straightforward, which was giving me a bit of pause—nothing I'd ever encountered in a mindscape was simple. I had to remind myself that I wasn't in a real place, that this wasn't just a simple physical puzzle that needed to be solved. This wasn't really Arishem and helping him wasn't necessarily what I needed to do to cure Thena's condition, even if he did seem to be making sense. I didn't really have any other choice but to continue to play along for now, given he had me over a barrel, but I needed to keep my eyes open. Knowing how dangerous he was, I couldn't afford to make any mistakes.

I was still feeling a little wrung out from my earlier exertion. Even so, I lifted my hands and called magic to them, tapping into the Mind Stone. Inhaling sharply at the icy sensation of drawing on the Stone's power, I wrapped its energy around my own then reached for the golden rings encircling the Thena.

They looked like such simple things from the outside but, feeling them out with my magic and the Stone, any illusions I may have had as to their power were immediately dispelled. My closest point of comparison was the binding enchantment that I'd placed on Bucky's Winter Soldier aspect, but the rings were circuits formed of pure cosmic energy, refined into an incredibly dense and complex design.

I couldn't help but think back to the time I'd touched Mjolnir and felt the bare outlines of the workings that Odin had placed over the weapon. What I'd felt then had reminded me of the Mind Stone's power, but I hadn't had the context for it at the time. Seeing this now, though, it was almost obvious: Odin's workings were a complex fusion of powers, with cosmic energy forming an underlying structure that was then further refined and overlaid with magical enchantment.

I could tell the difference, too. Looking at this, I got the feeling that Arishem didn't use magic to enhance his use of cosmic energy because he simply didn't need to. Odin's work was obviously advanced and complex—a display of his skill and mastery—but the refinement of cosmic energy on display here seemed like it was on another level entirely. And what I was looking at was just one small component of what was going on inside Thena. Even with the Mind Stone, was I really capable of replicating something like this? I didn't think so, but…

THE FRAME FIRST. A SCAFFOLD. THEN BUILD UPON THE FOUNDATION.

A frame… like the wireframe patterns that Eternals' powers used. I drew out more of the Mind Stone's power, externalising it in its rawest form. Normally, doing this out in the real world would make it blast outward in a beam, and here I instead wrestled it into submission with magic, fixing it in place so I could try to form it into shape. Once again, I found myself wishing I had an interface that would give me finer control over the Mind Stone's energy—doing this raw sucked.

Layering more of the Stone's energy upon itself, I started to form the basis of a ring, the golden energy starting to come together in the air in front of me. The shadow of Arishem watched me patiently, guiding me through the process as I slowly forged cosmic power into a binding shackle of mental energy. I'd never forced myself to try to work with this level of precise manipulation of energies before—I just hadn't had any reason to or a particular goal that it was needed for. Sometimes, the shadow of Arishem made me do something several times over before he was satisfied with the result and we moved on.

As I worked, it became readily apparent that the densely-packed circular whorls and other coiling designs I was working hard to replicate weren't just for show—there was a language there. I didn't know whether it was more comparable to a spoken tongue or programming code but, then again, at this level, I wasn't even sure there was a difference. The designs had meanings and intent behind them and, even though I couldn't really understand them, I needed to copy them as closely as I was able while the shadow of Arishem supplied the necessary will and direction.

I was drenched in sweat by the time we were done, which was weird considering that I was inside Thena's mindscape… Mind sweat, for mind effort, I supposed. I moved my hand and the new ring responded to my will—shifting and splitting into three, five, seven rings of varying sizes, hovering in place in the shape of a sphere. I gestured again and they reassembled into a single whole. "Okay, that is cool as shit," I said.

While this shared some of the principles of what I'd done for Bucky, it was orders of magnitude more complex. I didn't even know what a lot of what I'd copied was for. It wasn't a perfect replica of the original—not on my first try—but crafting it was still by far the most complicated and difficult thing I'd ever done with my magic or the Mind Stone. I didn't need a battery enchantment to keep it running, either. It was just… a thing, now. It existed as part of her. A wholly new structure inside the Eternal Thena.

It had taken a lot out of me, and I'd needed an example as a guide. I almost certainly couldn't have managed it on my own without the shadow of Arishem helping. But still… I'd essentially just used the Mind Stone to program something inside an eons-old space god robot, one of the most advanced creations in the universe.

CRUDE, IMPERFECT WORK. BUT IT SHOULD BE SUFFICIENT.

Shaking my head, I took a deep breath. "Thanks," I said, a little sarcastically. "Okay. What's next?"

ANOTHER.

"What?"

YOU MUST MAKE ANOTHER. WE'LL NEED TWO.

"Aw, man." I slumped slightly. "Okay. Ugh. And after that?"

AFTER THAT, WE FIND HER.