-High Above the Island-
Ikaris was still desperately fending off Thor and Captain Marvel, his heat vision firing in precise bursts to keep both combatants on the defensive. The beams forced them to dodge and weave rather than pressing their attack with full force.
Every second he bought was another second for Tiamut to grow stronger, closer to emergence.
"I'm here to help!" Star-Lord's voice rang out as he caught up with the aerial combat, his body wreathed in brilliant blue-white divine light. His speed was phenomenal—far beyond what he'd been capable of just days ago.
Thor glanced at him in surprise. Before leaving Earth for Vormir, Star-Lord's Celestial power had manifested as barely-controlled energy fragments—a pixelated mess. But now the power had solidified considerably, forming coherent structures around his body.
After a moment's assessment, Thor nodded with approval. "Well done, Star-Lord!"
"Surround him!" Captain Marvel was already moving, her photon energy blazing as she took position. She was a woman of action, not lengthy tactical discussions.
The three heroes quickly formed a triangle formation with Ikaris trapped at the center. No matter which direction he tried to flee, he'd face at least two opponents.
Ikaris analyzed the situation with centuries of combat experience. He understood Thor and Captain Marvel's capabilities intimately after their extended battle—breaking through their combined assault in any reasonable timeframe was impossible.
That left Star-Lord as the weak point. The half-Celestial's power level was unknown, untested. If Ikaris could disable or capture him, use him as a breakthrough to reach the island and take a hostage, the tactical situation would shift dramatically in his favor.
No matter what, he had to stall. Give Tiamut time to complete the Emergence. That was all that mattered.
What Ikaris didn't know—couldn't know—was that Earth's consciousness was frantically escalating climate disasters with every passing moment. Even if the Avengers failed to stop Tiamut, Earth's will would succeed in exterminating humanity before the Celestial could be born.
Without the evolutionary energy of seven billion humans to sustain him, Tiamut would simply fall back into dormancy, the Emergence incomplete.
Ikaris's desperate efforts were ultimately futile, destined only to bring catastrophic suffering to the very species he'd spent millennia protecting. But he knew none of this. In his mind, he was fulfilling Arishem the Judge's sacred mission.
Star-Lord saw Ikaris's eyes lock onto him and grinned fiercely. "Come on, then!"
He gathered every ounce of Celestial power he could access, channeling it into his right fist. Divine energy crackled and compressed, building to explosive levels. When Ikaris charged at him, Star-Lord met the attack head-on with a devastating punch.
BANG!
BOOM!
Two sounds—first the collision of fist meeting fist, then the impact of Star-Lord's body cratering into the island below. He'd been launched backward like a missile, the force of Ikaris's counterpunch overwhelming his own attack.
At the last second, Star-Lord managed to wrap his body in a protective cocoon of Celestial energy. When he hit the ground, the power absorbed most of the impact. He was battered but not broken.
"Damn," Star-Lord groaned, rubbing his wrist as he climbed out of the crater. "That guy's really strong."
His brief fantasy about being able to arm-wrestle Thor evaporated completely. Ikaris was on another level entirely.
But Star-Lord's sacrifice hadn't been in vain. He'd stopped Ikaris's charge, frozen him in place for a critical half-second.
Thor and Captain Marvel didn't waste the opportunity. Thor's hammer struck Ikaris from the left while Carol's photon-enhanced fist connected from the right. The combined impact was tremendous—the second boom that echoed across the island was the sound of Ikaris being driven into the ocean like a nail struck by twin hammers.
Water exploded upward in a massive geyser. Ikaris crashed through the waves and into the seafloor, creating a underwater crater.
He refused to surrender. Refused to accept failure. With a roar of defiance, he rocketed back toward the surface—
And suddenly couldn't fly.
Ikaris looked down in shock. Dozens of golden threads—impossibly thin but unbreakably strong—had wrapped around his limbs, his torso, his wings. Each thread glowed with cosmic energy.
"Get down here, you bastard!" Phastos stood on the shore, his arms extended, his face twisted with effort and rage. He pulled with all his strength.
The threads tightened. Ikaris was yanked from the sky and slammed into the rocky beach with bone-crushing force. More threads materialized, pinning him to the ground.
"Let me GO!" Ikaris struggled against the restraints, cosmic energy flaring around his body.
Mysterio joined the suppression, his hands glowing green as he projected containment fields directly onto Ikaris. The technological energy added thirty percent more restraining force to Phastos's threads.
Strange, having already secured Sprite in a magical prison, immediately created another construct—a cage of orange light that materialized around Ikaris's thrashing form.
Star-Lord, climbing out of his crater, raised both hands. Blue-white pillars of divine energy erupted from the ground, adding yet another layer of suppression.
Phastos's eyes flickered rapidly, his enhanced perception analyzing each imprisonment method in real-time. He saw how Strange's magic created pressure points, how Mysterio's energy disrupted cosmic flows, how Star-Lord's power connected to the planet itself. Within seconds, Phastos had incorporated insights from all three approaches, modifying his own restraints to create a perfect synthesis.
The golden threads transformed, becoming a complex web that nullified Ikaris's cosmic energy, prevented flight, and locked his body in an unbreakable matrix.
Ikaris finally stopped struggling. His strength was spent. The fight was over.
Strange approached slowly, his expression cold. "Why? Why did you have to resurrect Tiamut? After seven thousand years on Earth, how could you choose this?"
Ikaris couldn't meet his eyes. All the fight had drained out of him, leaving only exhaustion and despair. His voice was hollow. "It's my purpose. My mission. It's all I've ever been."
Sersi walked over, her steps slow and heavy. She reached down and gently stroked Ikaris's cheek, tears streaming down her face unchecked.
Ikaris looked up at her, and his own eyes filled with moisture. "I'm sorry. I love you. I've always loved you."
The words carried seven millennia of devotion, of sacrifice, of impossible choices.
Ikaris was a deeply conflicted being. He was utterly loyal to Arishem the Judge, viewing his assigned mission as sacred and absolute. For that mission, he could sacrifice anything—his happiness, his relationships, his very sense of self.
Everything except love.
He loved Sersi with an intensity that transcended his programming, his purpose. Even after years of separation, that feeling remained unchanged, undiminished.
If the Avengers hadn't intervened, if events had unfolded differently, Ikaris would have eventually chosen love over duty. He would have abandoned the mission to save Earth.
But abandoning the mission would have meant surrendering the only identity he'd ever known. The cognitive dissonance—the betrayal of Arishem, the failure to protect Ajak, the collapse of his entire worldview—would have been unbearable.
In that timeline, Ikaris would have chosen suicide as the only path forward. Atonement through self-destruction.
But that wasn't this timeline. Here, the choice had been taken from him.
-The Return-
When Wanda stepped back through her portal, the Tesseract glowing in her hands, she found the battle already concluded. Ajak was speaking quietly with a tearful Sprite. Ikaris remained bound on the ground, his face wet with tears, his head hanging in defeated silence.
"Looks like you handled things while I was gone," Wanda observed.
Tony's faceplate retracted. "We're efficient like that. Ready when you are."
"Then let's end this." Wanda didn't waste time on further discussion. Her hands began moving in complex patterns, red chaos magic intertwining with the Tesseract's blue energy.
The combination of Wanda's reality-warping abilities and the Space Stone's cosmic power created something unprecedented—a stable portal leading directly into Earth's deep interior, bypassing the entire mantle.
"Everyone in," Wanda commanded, her chaos magic forming a protective dome around the assembled heroes and Eternals. "Stay close to the shield."
She stepped through first. The others followed: Sersi, Phastos, Druig, Thena, Makkari, Kingo, Gilgamesh, Ajak. Then the Avengers—Strange, Tony, Thor, Carol, Star-Lord, Banner, Natasha, Barton, Rhodes, Sam, Bucky.
They emerged in an impossible space.
A vast cavity existed deep within Earth's mantle—a pocket of reality that shouldn't exist, carved out by Tiamut's gestating form. The temperature should have been thousands of degrees. The pressure should have crushed them instantly.
But Wanda's chaos magic held, creating a bubble of survivable reality within the inferno.
"Is that... the god?" Rhodes breathed, staring at the massive figure before them.
Tiamut floated in the center of the cavity, his form radiating soft white light. He was enormous—easily a kilometer tall, curled in a fetal position. His physical body hadn't fully manifested yet, still translucent and ghostly. But his consciousness was active, aware.
"We begin," Sersi said quietly, her voice steady despite her trembling hands.
The Eternals—all except the imprisoned Ikaris and Sprite—activated their bracelets. Golden light flowed from each device, connecting them in a web of shared consciousness.
The Uni-Mind formed.
On the surface, Sprite was frantically pounding against the walls of Strange's magical cage. "Let me out! Please!"
Strange looked back at her, uncertain.
"Release her," Ajak called up from her position in the Uni-Mind circle. "I don't believe she'll interfere anymore."
Strange hesitated, then with a gesture, dissolved the cage. "If you try anything—"
"I won't." Sprite ran to join the others, her small form slotting into the Uni-Mind formation. Golden light enveloped her as well.
Now only Ikaris remained imprisoned, isolated from his family's final act.
Strange glanced at Ajak, the question unspoken: What about him?
Ajak shook her head minutely. She wouldn't ask for that. Couldn't ask for that. Because even now, even after everything, she didn't know which side Ikaris would choose if freed.
You can do this, Sersi told herself, closing her eyes and centering her consciousness. For Earth. For humanity. For everyone.
She opened her eyes and placed her palm against Tiamut's translucent form.
The effect was immediate and overwhelming. Cosmic energy—vast beyond comprehension—flooded into Sersi's body. The power of a gestating Celestial, channeled through the Uni-Mind, amplified by the combined will of nine Eternals.
And Tiamut himself entered the Uni-Mind.
In that moment of connection, the Celestial understood everything. He felt their memories, their love for Earth, their desperation to save seven billion innocent lives. He understood what his birth would cost.
Tiamut had been resisting, fighting to complete his emergence, driven by cosmic programming to fulfill his purpose.
But a god should not be born by sacrificing billions of thinking, feeling, loving beings.
The resistance stopped. Tiamut made his choice.
The Celestial's own energy flowed willingly into Sersi's transmutation, accelerating the process, making it effortless. His massive form began to change, flesh becoming stone, divine matter transforming into eternal marble.
As the petrification spread from Sersi's hand across Tiamut's body, she also felt something else through the Uni-Mind connection—Sprite's seven-thousand-year burden of eternal childhood, the pain of never growing, never aging, never being taken seriously.
In the final moments before the cosmic energy dissipated, Sersi made one last gift. She reached into Sprite with her transmutation abilities and carefully, precisely, removed the aspect of her power that prevented aging.
Sprite would still have her illusions. But now she could also grow up. Live a normal lifespan. Experience everything she'd been denied.
The light faded. Tiamut's transformation was complete—a colossal statue of marble and crystal, forever frozen in his fetal curl, deep beneath Earth's surface.
The Emergence had been stopped.
Earth was saved.