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His figure streaked across the skies, acceleration pushed nearly to its very limit!
Trailing behind him was Šumer's fleet, but Arthur's heart burned like fire. In the blink of an eye, he had already torn through the atmosphere, and by that point, Šumer's machines had long been left far, far behind.
His speed did not falter for even a second, though unease began gnawing at him.
Why is it that even now, not a single transmission has come through?
No transmission… on one hand, that could be considered good news. But on the other hand, it might be the worst possible sign. The uncertainty made Arthur's chest tighten all the more.
Golden energy coursed around him, his velocity climbing still higher.
The acceleration technique had always been a brutal drain on internal energy. Yet ever since all of the "Great Stars" within him had fused into that single golden core, an egg-like sphere of power, that concern had shifted. At a glance, this condensed energy would be enough to sustain acceleration for at least two full hours!
And under this speed buff, he would need no more than ten minutes to reach the battlefield.
To be honest, these ten minutes might very well be the most excruciating stretch of his life.
Because there was no word, no signal, no hint of what awaited him. He even started to regret intercepting the Sovereign in deep space. If it hadn't been for those golden "fleas" scattering everywhere, he would already be at the battlefield by now.
But time, no matter how torturous, always passes. And ten minutes, seen objectively, wasn't long.
When Arthur finally spotted the great fracture snaking across the earth below, his body dove straight into it.
The Eye of Horus guided him, mapping out the terrain in advance so he could charge through the labyrinthine caverns at breakneck speed without ever crashing into stone.
At last, light! The space opened before him. He had reached the core of the planet.
And then… he froze.
Suspended midair, Arthur stared at the figures on the ground, his expression twisting into something utterly strange.
Along the way here, he had braced himself for countless possibilities, minds blown out, corpses strewn across the battlefield. At worst, he had even feared his entire side had been wiped out.
But instead…
"Can someone tell me… just what the hell is going on here?"
Arthur descended slowly, and though he wasn't Black, the expression on his face was exactly like that meme-worthy Black guy with a question mark.
Before him, every member of the Superhero Alliance was suited up in full combat gear. And every single one of them… was straining together, wrestling with a massive chunk of rock.
No, not just rock. The boulder was bizarre, covered with countless glowing tendrils of crystalline growths, luminous branches wrapping around veins of ore and stretching outward, threading through the cavern, spreading across the entire planet.
The core.
Ego's core.
In an instant, Arthur understood. Still, he wanted to hear it from his team's mouths, what kind of insane explanation they could possibly give for this.
But before anyone could speak, they all simultaneously noticed him… and made the exact same gesture.
Index fingers to their lips. A sharp shh.
You've got to be kidding me. Don't make a sound? Someone please tell me what in the hell is happening here?!
And then, finally, clarity.
A broad-shouldered brute, shirtless and sweating, spoke in a low rumble that carried through the cavern:
"Heh. The guy's asleep."
"Asleep… who?" Arthur asked, his eyes narrowing, until he noticed Mantis, crouched low to the ground. Two glowing antennae on her head shimmered faintly as one hand reached down into the fissure, touching a strange luminous substance beneath the rock.
"Ego… is asleep?"
Arthur blinked. Somehow, the scene before him didn't match the script he had prepared for in his head.
"Hold on." Tony spoke up, sparks of red energy sparking from his gauntlets. "Just give me a moment and I'll crack this rock open. Once it's shattered, we can head straight for the core and finish him off!"
That at least explained some of Arthur's confusion. But then Mantis, her voice trembling with strain, added, "You have to hurry. I can't hold him much longer…"
"Damn it, someone feed her some energy! This ore's tougher than hell," Tony snapped, twin beams of scarlet light cutting into the stone with frustratingly slow progress.
"Bah! Forget this, let me smash it!" Hulk roared, yes, Hulk, not Banner.
"That's a little too violent, don't you think?" Star-Lord protested. "What if it doesn't break?"
"Stop bickering already! Focus fire!" Rocket waved his oversized cannon dramatically, voice booming.
A moment later, "Shhhhhh!"
Everyone whipped their fingers to their lips in unison. Rocket froze, then lowered his voice to a near-whisper:
"…what I meant was, let's concentrate our firepower. We can punch right through this thing together."
Unfortunately, his voice had dropped so low that no one actually heard him.
Arthur's head throbbed.
What kind of clown show is this chaos supposed to be?!
Meanwhile, Mantis was visibly at her limit. If Ego woke, their one-in-a-million chance would evaporate instantly. After all, he wasn't unconscious, just asleep. Once her energy gave out, his mind would inevitably stir, and the planet itself would rise against them.
In that moment, Arthur finally pieced everything together.
Originally, in the "movie version" of events, the Sovereign had stormed into the planet's crust, hounding Star-Lord and the others mercilessly. That chaos had forced Rocket and Yondu to use desperate measures, obliterating the Sovereign fleet… but in the process, they had inadvertently woken Ego from his slumber.
This time, however, things had played out differently. The Sovereign had been intercepted, annihilated in space by Arthur and Šumer's swarm before they ever reached the battlefield. With no interference, Mantis's plan to lull Ego into deep sleep had gone perfectly… which explained this absurd scene before him now.
But none of that mattered anymore. Arthur's mind locked onto a solution in less than a second. He strode up to the massive rock, placed a hand against it, and willed his ability into action, choosing to collect.
[Collection Failed! Target too large to contain!]
As expected. Arthur wasn't surprised. His gaze swept over the massive structure, counting quickly. "This thing has eight of these… let's just call them vines, all linked together. Here's what I need: break every single one of them at the exact same time."
Steve frowned. "But those vines are part of Ego's nervous system. The moment we sever them, he'll wake up, unless you've got another plan."
Arthur's grin sharpened. "Correct."
Reaching into his Disassemble Space, Arthur began pulling gear into reality. At that very moment, Šumer's machine swarm swept into the cavern, their weapons humming.
The corner of his mouth curled upward.
"Listen up, team. Killing him might be a pain in the ass… but who said anything about killing?
We'll just pack him up, and take him with us."