-The Island-
Everyone turned to stare at Star-Lord, confusion and hope mixing on their faces.
"What do you mean?" Strange asked, leaning forward intently.
Star-Lord looked down at his hands, still crackling with blue-white energy, feeling the connection to the planet beneath his feet. "I can manipulate Earth's matter the same way Ego controlled his planetary body. If I can open a fissure—a crack in the crust—and stabilize it, I should be able to construct a passage leading directly to where Tiamut is gestating."
"Wait, wait." Tony held up a hand, his engineer's mind already calculating. "That fissure would have to penetrate deep into the mantle, possibly reaching the outer core. We're talking hundreds of kilometers down. The pressure at that depth would be—" He paused, running numbers through his HUD. "—roughly three and a half million times atmospheric pressure. And the temperature could exceed 5,000 degrees Celsius."
He looked at Star-Lord skeptically. "Even if you could create and maintain that passage, we couldn't survive descending through it. The Eternals might handle extreme conditions, but not that extreme."
Star-Lord's shoulders sagged slightly. Tony was right—he could feel it. Creating the channel would push his newfound abilities to their absolute limit, and keeping it stable while people traveled through it? That was asking too much.
"Wait," Strange interjected, his analytical mind shifting to a different approach. He turned to Sersi. "Does your transmutation ability require direct physical contact with Tiamut himself? Or could you work through a medium?"
Sersi blinked, confused. "I don't understand what you're asking."
"If I held a branch," Strange explained, making a grasping gesture, "and you used your power to transmute the branch into stone—would your transmutation spread through the branch to affect me as well?"
Sersi's mouth opened, then closed. She'd never considered that possibility before. "I... I don't know. I've never tried anything like that."
Her power had only recently begun affecting living matter at all—before her millennia on Earth had enhanced her abilities, she'd been limited to transforming inanimate objects. The concept of transmutation traveling through a medium to affect something she wasn't directly touching was completely untested.
"That sounds incredibly unreliable," Tony said flatly. "We're talking about a god. A Celestial. Even if Sersi were in direct physical contact with Tiamut, success isn't guaranteed. But you want her to transmute him through a medium across hundreds of kilometers? The power loss alone would—"
"He's right," War Machine agreed, shaking his head. "The physics don't work. We need another approach."
Strange's jaw tightened with frustration. "Like what, exactly?"
"We wait," Rhodes suggested. "Wait until Tiamut gets closer to the surface, close enough that physical contact becomes feasible."
"Are you KIDDING me?!" Strange's voice rose sharply. "You just got back from space! You don't understand what's happening on Earth right now! Every second we delay, the climate disasters intensify! People are dying by the thousands!"
He gestured wildly at the sky. "We're experiencing Category 6 hurricanes—a category that doesn't even exist! Earthquakes registering 9.5 on the Richter scale every few hours! Volcanic eruptions on seven continents simultaneously! If we wait even one more second, countless lives will be lost!"
"Okay, okay!" Tony raised both hands placatingly. "Point taken. The situation is bad."
He'd already instructed Jarvis to compile climate data the moment they'd returned to Earth. The numbers were staggering, apocalyptic.
His HUD was currently showing him live feed from the Malibu house. The villa where he'd left Aunt May and young Peter Parker was being battered by waves that towered higher than the structure itself. Seawater was flooding through the lower floors. The foundation groaned under the assault.
Inside, little Peter pressed himself against the window, eyes wide with terror as he watched the ocean trying to consume their home. "Aunt May? Do we... do we really have to stay here?"
May wrapped her arms around him tightly, her own fear carefully hidden. Leaving wasn't an option anymore—the storm had intensified too quickly, cutting off escape routes.
Elsewhere in the villa, Hela stood at a different window, watching the super-storm with calculating eyes. She realized with cold clarity that even her considerable power might not be enough if the villa's structural integrity failed.
The building had protections—Strange's wards, Wanda's enchantments, the Time Stone's influence preventing temporal damage. But if the foundation gave way, if the entire structure slid into the churning ocean...
Tony closed the feed, his expression hardening. "Yeah. We need to solve this. Fast."
Banner, who'd been quietly thinking while the others argued, suddenly spoke up. "What about using the Infinity Stones?"
Everyone turned to look at him.
"Elaborate," Strange said.
"The Space Stone," Banner explained, warming to his idea. "We use the Tesseract to teleport directly into the Earth's core—or close to it. Bypass the whole 'traveling through a passage' problem entirely. Wanda's chaos magic should be powerful enough to create a protective shield around us, keeping the heat and pressure at bay."
He gestured toward Star-Lord. "Then Quill uses his connection to the planet to create a passage—but a short one, just a few meters instead of hundreds of kilometers. That drastically reduces the difficulty and energy required. Finally, we all combine our power to help Sersi transmute Tiamut."
Ajak frowned, considering the proposal. "But how would we ensure we teleported to the correct location? And even with the Space Stone, the initial moment of arrival—before any protections are established—could kill us instantly if we materialize inside solid rock or magma."
"The Mirror Dimension," Strange said immediately, his eyes lighting up with understanding. "We enter the Mirror Dimension first, then use the Tesseract to jump to the Earth's core. The Mirror Dimension exists slightly out of phase with physical reality—it would give us a buffer, a moment to assess the situation and establish our defenses before fully transitioning into normal space."
"Exactly!" Banner snapped his fingers. "And if the petrification attempt fails, we have backup options. The Mind Stone could potentially be used to put Tiamut into a deeper sleep, prevent him from completing the Emergence."
With one conceptual breakthrough, suddenly multiple possibilities opened up. Tony's tactical mind started running scenarios. "If we're bringing multiple stones anyway, we could use the Reality Stone to temporarily alter the local physics—reduce the temperature and pressure in our immediate vicinity, make the environment survivable without relying entirely on Wanda's shields."
"The Power Stone could—" He paused, grimacing. "No, actually, the Power Stone is off the table. One miscalculation and we crack the planet like an egg. Let's not add 'accidentally destroying Earth while trying to save it' to our list of potential outcomes."
"Agreed," Strange said dryly. "No Power Stone in the Earth's core. That's just asking for catastrophe."
"There's one problem," Natasha pointed out, wincing as she stood—her ribs were still healing from Ikaris's attack. "The Tesseract is still on Asgard. We'd need to retrieve it first."
"On it." Wanda's hands were already moving in circular patterns, sparks of red and gold forming a portal framework. "I'll coordinate with Heimdall. While I handle the communication and retrieval, you all figure out how to deal with our flying problem."
She gestured at the sky where Ikaris, Thor, and Captain Marvel were still engaged in their aerial battle, moving further from the island with each passing moment.
"Leave that to me," Star-Lord said, grinning fiercely. He handed the still-struggling Sprite to Strange, who accepted her with a firm magical binding. "I'm feeling pretty good right now. Let's see how tough this guy really is."
He didn't wait for permission or debate. Blue-white energy erupted around his body, and he shot into the sky like a rocket, accelerating toward the distant combat with god-like speed.
The rest of the team watched him go, then turned to each other.
"This plan is insane," Rhodes said.
"Completely," Strange agreed.
"When has that ever stopped us?" Tony's faceplate slid down, his Arc Reactor glowing brightly. "Let's save the world. Again."