-The Island-
Just as Sersi prepared to initiate the Uni-Mind connection, channeling the combined power of all the Eternals into a single consciousness, Sprite suddenly materialized directly behind her.
The illusion dropped. The knife came up.
Thunk.
The blade plunged into Sersi's abdomen, piercing through her cosmic-enhanced body. Blood—golden, not red—welled around the wound.
Everyone froze in shock.
"What are you doing?!" Kingo's voice was filled with disbelief and horror. His hands sparked with cosmic energy, instinctively preparing to fire, but Sprite was too close to Sersi—any attack might hit both of them.
"Why?" Sersi's voice was barely a whisper. She turned her head with agonizing slowness, looking at the small figure behind her.
Sprite yanked the knife free with a sickening sound and immediately pressed it against Sersi's throat, using her as a hostage. She dragged Sersi backward, putting distance between herself and the other Eternals.
Only then, with trembling hands and tears streaming down her eternally young face, did Sprite begin to speak.
"Seven thousand years," she said, her voice breaking. "Seven thousand years as a child. Do you know what that's like? Watching all of you live full lives while I'm trapped in this body? Never growing up. Never being taken seriously. Always the little sister. Always the kid."
Her knife hand shook, but didn't lower. "If Tiamut is born, we return to the World Forge. Arishem remakes us. I could finally—finally—be an adult. Have a real life instead of this eternal childhood."
Ajak's heart broke. They were family. Seven millennia together, and now they were tearing each other apart. She'd failed them. Failed as a leader, as a mother figure, as—
Druig caught her eye and gave an almost imperceptible nod toward Phastos. The inventor understood immediately and shifted slightly, preparing to use his matter manipulation to disable Sprite's weapon.
But Sprite was paranoid, hyper-alert. "Don't move!" she screamed, seeing Kingo's fingers twitch. "Don't you dare! I'll kill her! I swear I will!"
Kingo froze, his hands dropping to his sides.
Sprite activated her powers at full strength. Dozens of identical copies of herself and Sersi appeared around them—perfect illusions, indistinguishable from reality. They moved independently, each one seeming solid and real. Finding the true Sprite among them would be impossible.
Ajak took a deep breath, her mind racing. Her healing abilities were powerful, but they couldn't resurrect the dead. If Sprite actually killed Sersi, if she drove that blade through her carotid artery—
Strange might not break cosmic law again to use the Time Stone for someone he'd just met. She couldn't gamble on that.
But she also couldn't just surrender. Ajak caught Makkari's eye and signed quickly: "Help them fight Ikaris. We'll handle this."
Makkari hesitated only a moment, then nodded. She became a blur and vanished, racing toward the main battle.
"Sprite..." Sersi's voice was thick with tears and blood. "Please. We're family."
"I'm sorry," Sprite whispered, and she genuinely sounded it. "But I can't live like this anymore. I can't."
High above, Ikaris caught a glimpse of Sprite successfully taking Sersi hostage. A slight smile crossed his face—finally, something going according to plan.
Gilgamesh came at him again, leaping impossibly high with his cosmic-enhanced strength. Ikaris dodged with casual grace, but his attention had shifted.
Strange was the real problem. Those portals allowed Gilgamesh to hit far above his weight class, appearing anywhere, attacking from any angle. Remove Strange from the equation, and Gilgamesh became manageable.
Ikaris's eyes blazed red. Twin beams of heat vision lanced toward the sorcerer.
Strange saw them coming and immediately conjured a Tao Mandala shield, the golden disc of energy materializing in front of him. "Oh, hell—"
The heat vision struck the shield with tremendous force. Strange felt like he was trying to hold back a freight train with his bare hands. The cosmic energy eroded his magical construct at a visible rate, burning through layer after layer of mystical protection.
Mysterio saw Strange's desperate situation and clenched both fists. Twin columns of emerald energy erupted from his palms, intersecting with Ikaris's heat vision, trying to weaken it.
The intervention helped—the pressure on Strange's shield decreased slightly—but it still wasn't enough. The shield was down to a paper-thin membrane, seconds from complete failure.
This is it, Strange thought. I'm about to die—
Reality blurred. Makkari appeared as a streak of light, grabbed Strange, and relocated him a hundred meters away in the span of a single heartbeat.
Strange collapsed to his knees, gasping. "Thank you—GAH!" His right hand was a mess of third-degree burns. Although the shield had held long enough to prevent the heat vision from piercing through completely, the thermal radiation had been enough to char his flesh.
Makkari looked at his injury, then vanished again. A split-second later, she reappeared with Ajak.
Ajak paused for a moment, processing the sudden change of location, then immediately placed her hands on Strange's burned arm. Golden healing light flowed from her palms, and the damaged tissue began regenerating at an accelerated rate. New skin formed, nerves reconnected, within seconds the injury was gone.
"Thank you," Strange said gratefully. "I'm sorry about—"
Movement in his peripheral vision made him react instantly. He shoved Ajak aside roughly. "Get down!"
But he was too late.
Ikaris had noticed Ajak healing Strange and seized the opportunity. He shot forward like a missile, crossing the distance in an instant, and grabbed both Ajak and Strange by their throats. He lifted them off the ground, his fingers tightening.
Just as his grip was about to crush Ajak's windpipe—again—Makkari became a blur of motion. She materialized behind Ikaris and drove her elbow into the base of his skull with the force of a supersonic jet.
The impact stunned Ikaris. His grip loosened, and both Ajak and Strange were thrown free. Makkari caught them mid-flight and deposited them safely away from the combat zone.
"Damn it!" Ikaris shook his head, clearing the stars from his vision. Makkari's speed was becoming a serious problem. She was everywhere and nowhere, impossible to pin down.
His enhanced senses detected movement above him. He shot straight upward—
Natasha's hammer came down like the wrath of god, slamming into the spot where Ikaris had been standing a microsecond before. Lightning erupted from the point of impact, cratering the ground and sending arcs of electricity dancing across the rock.
The dust cloud from the impact obscured Natasha's vision. She knew she'd missed him, but where—
Ikaris's heat vision lanced through the dust cloud, striking Natasha square in the chest. Her armor absorbed some of it, but the force was tremendous. She was blown backward, crashing through debris.
Gilgamesh saw Natasha falling and immediately leaped to intercept Ikaris, his massive fist cocked back. His punch connected with Ikaris's jaw, forcibly interrupting the heat vision beam before it could do more damage.
But Gilgamesh was airborne, with no leverage, no way to follow up. Ikaris recovered instantly and fired his heat vision at point-blank range. Gilgamesh's cosmic armor glowed, absorbing what it could, but he was still driven downward by the sustained blast, cratering into the ground with bone-breaking force.
Ikaris spun and fired at Mysterio, catching him mid-flight. Quentin's energy shields flared and failed, and he plummeted from the sky.
For a moment, the battlefield was silent. Every combatant who could match Ikaris was down.
Ajak had just finished healing herself and was about to help Strange when Ikaris charged at her again, intent on finishing what he'd started in the Arctic.
Natasha, gritting her teeth through the pain of cracked ribs, raised Mjolnir and threw it with everything she had left.
Ikaris caught the hammer one-handed without even slowing down.
"You are no match for me," he said coldly, tossing Mjolnir aside like a toy. It clattered across the rock, too far for Natasha to recall in time.
He continued his approach, heat vision building in his eyes—
"Are you sure about that?" Strange's voice carried across the battlefield. Despite his injuries, despite his exhaustion, there was confidence in his tone. "What about them?"
Ikaris frowned and turned.
A portal—far larger than any Strange had opened before—materialized beside the sorcerer. And through it stepped the rest of the Avengers, fresh from Vormir.
Thor emerged first, Stormbreaker in hand, his remaining eye blazing with lightning. He saw Natasha on the ground, injured, and his expression darkened with fury. He turned that gaze on Ikaris, assessing, calculating.
"Took you long enough," Strange said dryly.
Tony Stark, wearing the Mark 18 armor—sleek black and gold, crackling with barely contained power—landed beside Strange and clapped him on the shoulder. "Good job not dying, Doc. I appreciate the effort."
"Yeah, well, I'll probably outlive you anyway," Strange retorted reflexively.
Tony's faceplate retracted, revealing his trademark smirk. "There's the sunny disposition we all know and love."
Captain America stepped through next, both vibranium shields at the ready. Then Banner, Gamora, Rocket, Barton, Sam, Bucky—everyone who'd been to Vormir was now here, armed and ready.
And most importantly, Captain Marvel emerged last, her body already glowing with photon energy, her eyes blazing with power that rivaled Ikaris's own.
The odds had just changed dramatically.
Ikaris stared at the assembled heroes, his mind rapidly recalculating. He was powerful—perhaps the most powerful Eternal ever created. But this many opponents, including Thor and Carol?
This was going to be much harder than he'd thought.