The Domo descended through layers of planetary crust like a knife through water, Phastos's energy drill boring through rock and magma with precision that would have made Reed Richards weep with envy. The ship's interior hummed with barely contained power while holographic displays tracked their depth in real-time.

  "Six thousand kilometers and counting," Phastos murmured, his hands dancing across control interfaces. "We're approaching the core boundary. Temperature readings are... well, they're exactly what you'd expect when drilling to the center of a planet."

  The heat was overwhelming even through the Domo's shields. Waves of thermal energy made the air shimmer, and everyone could feel sweat beading on their synthetic skin despite their enhanced durability. The pressure indicators climbed steadily, showing forces that would crush diamonds to powder.

  Ajak sat in the command chair, her expression carefully neutral despite the tension radiating from her shoulders. The weight of what they were about to witness, what they'd been complicit in for millennia, pressed down like physical force.

  The other Eternals clustered around viewports, watching Earth's interior layers peel away.

  Ikaris stood apart from the group with arms crossed, golden eyes fixed on the forward screen with intensity that could melt steel. His jaw worked constantly, grinding teeth together hard enough that Sersi could hear it from across the cabin.

  She didn't look at him. Hadn't looked at him properly since the beach revelation. Every time their eyes accidentally met, she felt something inside her chest twist painfully.

  Sprite huddled in a corner seat, her small body curled tight, making herself even smaller than usual. Her illusions flickered around her unconsciously, showing brief flashes of what she wanted to be: taller, older, anything but eternally trapped in childhood.

  Druig's eyes glowed faintly gold, his power leaking through emotional control as anxiety built.

  Makkari herself watched the depth gauge with single-minded focus.

  Thena leaned against Gilgamesh, her breathing measured as she was fighting off an episode. His massive hand rested on her shoulder, thumb tracing small circles that helped ground her in reality.

  Kingo had stopped making jokes for some time now, which worried everyone more than his usual commentary would have. When Kingo went quiet, situations were truly dire.

  And Krunal, well he was doing what he did best, being invisible and recording this Seven Thousand Year long story unfold.

  "Approaching core boundary," Phastos announced. "Switching to thermal shielding. Everyone hold on, this is going to get bumpy."

  The Domo shuddered as it broke through into Earth's core, and suddenly everything changed.

  The viewports lit up with impossible radiance.

  Tiamut sprawled across what should have been molten iron and nickel, and the sight stole the breath from every Eternal aboard. His massive form defied human comprehension, existing on a scale that made even moons seem small. Each finger was the size of a mountain range, his chest rose and fell with breaths that moved like continental drift. Golden light radiated from every inch of his skin, not merely bright but alive, pulsing with the dreams of billions of humans whose consciousness fed his growth.

  The Dreaming Celestial had been sleeping here for millions of years, nestled in Earth's heart like an infant in a womb, and the proximity to such majesty made the air itself feel sacred.

  Even knowing what they were coming to see, even having been told explicitly by Arishem himself about Tiamut's existence, the sight of him was soul-shaking for the Eternals.

  Ajak's hands gripped her armrests hard enough to leave dents in the metal. Her breath caught in her throat as ancient programming screamed at her to kneel, to prostrate herself before cosmic majesty that her very existence was designed to serve.

  The others felt it too, that overwhelming urge to submit, to worship, to acknowledge the fundamental hierarchy that placed Celestials so far above Eternals that the gap might as well have been infinite.

  Ikaris actually dropped to one knee before catching himself, his face flushing with shame and anger at the involuntary response.

  "By Arishem," Sersi whispered, one hand pressed to the viewport. "He's beautiful."

  And he was.

  Despite the horror of what his awakening would mean, despite knowing that his birth would crack Earth open and kill every living thing on the surface, Tiamut was magnificent. His form carried grace that transcended mere aesthetics, existing in that space where function and beauty became indistinguishable.

  Then Sprite's sharp eyes caught something that shattered the moment's reverence.

  "Wait. What are those?"

  Chains.

  Massive chains of unholy crimson light wrapped around Tiamut's body in patterns that resembled a four-way braided harness, the kind used for restraining large animals or securing impossible loads. The chains pulsed with energy that felt wrong against Tiamut's golden radiance, corrupt and invasive, violating the Celestial's majesty with their very presence.

  The sight triggered something primal in Ikaris.

  His vision went red. All the carefully constructed justifications for their mission, all the measured assessments and strategic planning, evaporated in an instant. Someone had chained his god. Someone had defiled Tiamut with restraints like he was a common beast to be subdued.

  "No." The word came out strangled, barely recognizable as language. "No, no, NO!"

  Golden energy exploded from Ikaris's eyes as he blasted through the Domo's exit hatch without bothering to open it properly. The metal screamed as it tore, alarms shrieking warnings about hull integrity while Ikaris shot toward the first thing his rage-blind eyes could focus on.

  A cartoon joker lounging on one of the massive chains, feet kicked up, whistling a jaunty tune that echoed impossibly through the airless core.

  "Ikaris, wait!" Ajak's voice carried command authority that had controlled him for seven thousand years.

  Unsurprisingly, he didn't listen.

  Sersi moved to follow, her own anger at the desecration warring with the part of her brain that insisted they needed information before attacking. "We should assess the situation first, gather intelligence about who..."

  "That bloody bastard already charged blindly," Druig snarled, his accent thickening with stress as his eyes blazed gold. He launched himself after Ikaris. "Might as well ask questions after we've broken every bone in their bodies."

  The other Eternals exchanged glances loaded with uncertainty and resignation.

  "Well," Kingo said finally, his voice carrying forced lightness that didn't match his expression, "when in Rome, commit to the absolutely terrible plan, I suppose."

  They followed.

  Only Ajak, Phastos, and surprisingly, Karun remained aboard the Domo, watching through viewports as their family charged into unknown danger with all the strategic planning of a brick through a window.

  "This is going to end badly," Phastos muttered, surprised, finally noticing the human. "Karun, you're still recording? More importantly, when did you board the ship?"

  Karun's camera never stopped rolling, his professional instincts taking over. "Every second, sir. Though I must say, this is significantly more dramatic than anything Bollywood has attempted."

  Ikaris rocketed toward the cartoon figure with speed that turned the air around him into superheated plasma, his hands outstretched to grab, tear and destroy whatever abomination dared defile Tiamut's majesty.

  He got within three meters before an absurdly oversized mallet materialized out of nowhere and caught him square in the face.

  The impact was cartoonishly exaggerated, complete with a sound effect that went "BONK", which shouldn't have been possible in the vacuum of Earth's core. Ikaris's head compressed like an accordion, his entire body following the momentum as he was launched backward at speeds that rivaled his initial charge.

  He flew up, up, UP, crashing through multiple layers of the core chamber before slamming into the underside of the mantle with force that created a crater visible enough from the core.

  The other Eternals landed on the massive chain platform just in time to witness their strongest member get absolutely demolished by a jester with a hammer.

  "What in Arishem's name..." Gilgamesh breathed.

  Slapstick, the cartoon joker responsible for the assault, inspected his oversized mallet with exaggerated satisfaction. His rubbery body bounced as he moved, defying physics in ways that made Phastos's engineering brain scream. "Wow, that guy's face was built for slapstick comedy. You'd think people would appreciate the dying art."

  "Who are you people?" Sersi demanded, her hands already glowing with transmutation energy. "Why have you chained Tiamut? What gives you the right to..."

  "Rights? Lady, we're mercenaries. We don't need rights, we need paychecks. Also, I get to hit things with a hammer, which honestly sweetens the deal." Slapstick's grin widened impossibly. "And our employer paid very well for this particular job. Speaking of which..."

  He snapped his fingers.

  The rest of the Mercs for Money appeared from behind Tiamut's massive form, stepping out of the shadows with weapons drawn and expressions ranging from bored to actively entertained.

  Deadpool led the group, his mask's eyes narrowing as he took in the Eternals. "Well, fuck me sideways, space elves with glowy bits. Eternals, right? I've jerked off to worse fanfic. Listen up, team, these shiny assholes are cramping our payday. Time to make 'em regret crawling out of their cosmic glory hole"

  "We're not robots," Sprite protested, her small hands clenching into fists. "We're synthetic, yes, but we're alive. We have souls, personalities, free will..."

  "Tomato, tomahto, synth-girl." Deadpool shrugged. "Point is, you're squatting on prime real estate, kiddo, which means we get to introduce you to the wonderful world of mercenary warfare. Hit-Monkey, my hairy little murder-buddy, you want to take the angry glowing guy?"

  Hit-Monkey chittered aggressively, loading his guns with ammunition that glowed faintly red.

  Druig's eyes blazed golden as he reached out with his power, attempting to seize control of the mercenaries' minds, to force them to their knees and make them explain everything before he allowed them the mercy of unconsciousness. "You will all stand down and..."

  Nothing happened.

  Druig's power, which had controlled thousands of humans simultaneously, which had bent entire villages to his will for centuries, slid off the mercenaries' minds like water off waxed paper.

  "The hell?" Druig's eyes widened with genuine shock. "How are you resisting? You're clearly human, I can sense the neural patterns, but..."

  "Chaotic minds, baby!" Slapstick's body stretched like taffy as he bounced excitedly. "Your little psychic finger-bang can't find the on-switch because our brains operate on either toon logic, fourth-wall breaks or pure concentrated insanity! Good luck finding anything in there to grab onto!"

  Massacre nodded solemnly, his mask gleaming in Tiamut's golden light. "The Lord teaches that a scrambled mind is harder to possess. Trust me, ours is blessed."

  "Enough talk," Thena snarled, golden weapons materializing in her hands as her Mahd Wy'ry threatened to break through completely. The stress of the situation, the revelation about their true purpose, and the sight of Tiamut in chains had pushed her right to the edge. "We end this now."

  She charged.

  Meanwhile, high above them in the mantle, Ikaris was extracting himself from the crater, his healing factor already repairing the damage. But the humiliation stung worse than any physical injury. He'd been swatted aside like an insect. Him. The strongest of the Eternals. By a joker with a hammer.

  He shot back down toward the core, rage now tempered with caution.

  When he landed back on the chain platform, the battle had already begun.

  Gilgamesh found himself facing Machine Man, the android's body flowing like liquid metal as he dodged the Eternal's devastating punches.

  "Impressive force output," Machine Man observed clinically, his arm extending to impossible lengths to deliver a counterpunch that caught Gilgamesh in the ribs. "Approximately 47 tons per square inch. However, your fighting style relies heavily on overwhelming physical superiority."

  Machine Man finally tested his upgrades from Stark, as his torso literally flowed around Gilgamesh's next punch, the metal parting like water before reforming and launching a dozen smaller fists from his body simultaneously.

  Gilgamesh grunted as the impacts hit him from multiple angles, his enhanced durability keeping him standing but the sheer creativity of the assault forcing him onto the defensive. "You fight like you're pissing on every martial art ever created. At least have the spirit to come at me like a warrior, you Damn robot."

  "Ha, Pot calling the kettle black." Machine Man's head rotated 360 degrees in a whipping headbutt, while his body remained stationary. "Bitch, the only difference between you and me is our manufacturing company. Get off your high horse, you Clanker!"

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Druig, frustrated by his mind control's failure, tried a different approach with Hit-Monkey, attempting to engage the creature directly since mental domination had proven useless.

  "Listen, monkey," Druig began, his accent thickening with stress. "I don't want to hurt you. Just tell us who hired you and..."

  Hit-Monkey responded by shooting him in the face.

  The bullet didn't penetrate Druig's enhanced physiology, but it stung like hell and sent him stumbling backwards. Before he could recover, Hit-Monkey was moving, his small form a blur as he landed on the poor man's soldier as he unloaded his clips on the guy's temple.

  They worked as expected, temporarily disorienting Druig and disrupting his concentration needed for his mind control.

  For three seconds, Druig experienced what felt like trying to control every mind in a fifty-mile radius simultaneously. The feedback nearly knocked him unconscious.

  Hit-Monkey followed up by loweringhis tiny pants and pissing on the droid's body, trying to short-circuit it like he once did with Machine Man.

  "This is so fucking humiliating," Druig groaned, slipping in Monkey pee face-first.

  Hit-Monkey chittered agreement. Pulling up his pants now that his tank was fully unloaded.

  Thena's fight with Deadpool was somehow both deadly serious and completely absurd.

  Her golden weapons moved with precision born from millennia of combat, every strike meant to kill outright. Her spear snapped forward toward Deadpool's heart, fast enough that any normal human would've been dead before their brain caught up.

  Deadpool brought his katana up, but the energy construct flowed around the blade like liquid light and punched straight through his chest.

  Thena watched him stumble back from her last swing, drop to one knee, clutching his side like he was actually hurt for once. She let her cosmic blades fade, golden light winking out, and allowed herself a small, satisfied smile.

  "Stay down, fool," she said. "You've bled enough."

  Deadpool stayed down for about half a second.

  Then he popped straight up in her face. "Boo."

  She flinched. Full-body twitch, eyes wide.

  Before she could react, both pistols were out and barking, magazines emptied straight into her open mouth. Bullets tore through cheeks, tongue, teeth in a wet spray of gold. She gagged, staggered, but the wounds were already sealing, skin knitting like it was nothing.

  Thena spat a glob of glowing blood onto the ground and snarled. One flick of her wrist and a fresh blade snapped into existence. She swung hard and clean, straight through his neck.

  His head came off easy, rolling across the dirt, mask still grinning.

  The problem was, those bullets had rattled something deep in her skull.

  Mahd Wy'ry hit like a sledgehammer.

  Old wars flared behind her eyes with visceral intensity. She saw planets burning, their atmospheres peeling away in strips of flame. Allies turning on each other, cosmic weapons tearing through flesh that had seemed invulnerable. Her own hands, slick with immortal blood that glowed like molten gold, ending lives that had lasted millennia.

  The weight of false memories crashed down, and Thena's grace and poise vanished in an instant.

  She went feral.

  Screaming, she hurled everything her mind could form. Spears. Axes. Whips of light. Hacking at his headless body, at the head when it tried to crawl back, at anything that moved.

  Deadpool's body groped blindly until it found the severed head and slapped it back on with a wet, sucking sound. He rolled his neck like he was loosening up after a nap.

  "Oh yeah," he said. "Manic pixie apocalypse mode. This is my kind of foreplay, Thena. Keep swinging, baby. I thrive on crazy."

  She lunged again, wilder now, no technique left, just raw rage.

  Deadpool danced around her, katanas flashing, deliberately taking hits just to watch limbs grow back.

  "You know," he added between dodges, "you'd be the perfect woman for me if I wasn't already engaged."

  The words cut through the chaos of battle like a bell.

  The rest of the mercs heard that loud and clear.

  Masacre paused mid-machete swing, blood dripping from the blade. "May lord bless this unholy union." He laughed. "Don't screw it up before the honeymoon."

  Hit-Monkey, perched on a crate, dropped two rounds into Druig, then gave Deadpool a quick salute with his pistol.

  Gorilla-Man slammed an Makkari into the ground and barked out a laugh. "Engaged? Damn, Wade. Good for you. I want an open bar and banana cake."

  Machine Man blocked Gilgamesh's punch, metal flowing as he spoke.

  "Even you got engaged? I should blackmail Stark into building me a partner unit. I could customise her looks to my taste, even adjust her personality! This is sounding better and better by the second."

  Deadpool grinned wider, parrying another sloppy swing as he pulled a blue Pym disc from his belt. "Love you guys. Truly."

  Thena barely registered any of it.

  She saw him flick a pebble toward her.

  Through the haze, she smirked and reached out, cocky enough to snatch it mid-air.

  Suddenly, a blue disc tagged the pebble first.

  In an instant, whoosh.

  The rock ballooned into a ten-meter boulder and dropped straight down on her.

  She went down hard, buried beneath it, as her glow snuffed out, and Mahd Wy'ry lost its clutch over her as she went unconscious.

  Deadpool wandered over and gave the boulder a light kick.

  "And that, kids, is why you never catch random shit from strangers! Specially from a guy named Deadpool."

  Makkari discovered the hard way that fighting Gorilla Man was nothing like fighting normal opponents.

  Her speed was absolute, allowing her to move faster than sound, faster than most people could track. She'd run circles around countless enemies, delivered devastating strikes before they could blink, and generally treated physics as a mild suggestion rather than a hard rule.

  Gorilla Man just smiled and opened a portal to the Mirror Dimension.

  Makkari's momentum carried her straight into it before she could change direction. She found herself in a twisted reflection of the core chamber where physics worked differently, and speed actually proved disadvantageous.

  Gorilla Man stepped through after her, his yellow robes flowing around his massive simian frame. "I studied at Kamar-Taj for six months. The Masters there taught me how to deal with speed demons. Would you like to see what I learned?"

  Makkari's response was to sign something extremely rude and charge at him anyway.

  The Mirror Dimension twisted around her as Gorilla Man reshaped it with gestures that carried surprising grace. Walls appeared from nowhere, floors became ceilings and direction lost meaning as space folded in on itself.

  Makkari found her speed neutralized by geometry that refused to make sense and by the simple fact that running in circles didn't help when the circle kept changing size.

  ; she signed furiously.

  Gorilla Man understood it perfectly. "All warfare is based on deception. Also, I learned that move from Wong, and he's never lost a sparring match, well except Jay. I'm just following best practices."

  Kingo, meanwhile, found himself facing both Ant-Man and Wasp simultaneously, which would have been manageable if they'd stayed human-sized.

  They didn't.

  Hope shrunk to wasp size and flew at his face, her suit's energy weapons firing blasts that stung like hornets despite their small scale. Scott went giant, growing to fifteen feet tall and delivering a punch that sent Kingo tumbling backward.

  "This is so unfair!" Kingo shouted, firing his finger guns at targets that kept changing size. "Pick a scale and stick with it!"

  "Where's the fun in that?" Hope's voice came from everywhere and nowhere as she flew around Kingo's head in dizzying patterns. Her energy blasts weren't powerful enough to seriously hurt him, but they were extremely annoying, and each hit disrupted his concentration just enough to throw off his aim.

  Scott shrunk down to ant size, rode one of the ants he brought, then grew back to giant size while delivering an uppercut that caught Kingo completely off-guard.

  "You know what the really great thing about Pym Particles is?" Scott asked conversationally. "Conservation of momentum still applies. So when I'm tiny and moving fast, then suddenly get big? All that velocity gets transferred to my larger mass. It's like getting hit by a train that used to be the size of a baseball."

  Kingo's response was to blast Scott in the face with concentrated cosmic energy.

  Scott shrunk down again, the blast barely passing through where he'd been, then grew back to punch Kingo in the kidney.

  "I hate insect theme heroes so much right now," Kingo groaned.

  Sprite, faced with Massacre, did what she did best: she created illusions.

  A perfect copy of Hit Monkey appeared, hands raised in surrender, voice carrying Hit Monkey's exact chitter.

  Massacre didn't hesitate.

  He shot the illusion Hit Monkey right in the face, and the illusion shattered.

  "That... that was an illusion," Massacre said, his voice cracking as tears of genuine anguish formed behind his mask. "That was my chance. My one clean shot at finally getting rid of that demonic monkey. And you... you took that away from me, you Godless creature."

  His voice carried the weight of genuine religious fervor mixed with absolute fury.

  Sprite's calmness shatters at her opponent's reaction as Massacre advances on her position with fury in his steps. She created more illusions, duplicates of herself, monstrous creatures, environmental hazards that should have given any sane person pause.

  Massacre walked through them all without slowing down, his regret of not achieving the sweet dream of silencing that abominating Monkey fuelling him.

  "Lord, give me the strength to deliver your judgment on this witch," he continued, now addressing Sprite directly even though she was hiding behind seven layers of illusion.

  He reached out and grabbed Sprite's actual collar, pulling her out from behind her illusions with embarrassing ease.

  Sprite kicked him in the scrotum.

  It hurt her foot more than it hurt Massacre.

  "Ow," she said.

  "Yes," Massacre agreed. "The Lord said to protect your ball more than your head, that's why I wear a cup blessed by three priests. Also, stop kicking there. It's rude."

  While the fight raged across Tiamut's chains, Sersi made her move.

  She slipped away from the main battle while everyone was distracted, her transmutation powers let her phase through obstacles, converting chain links to air temporarily before reconverting them behind her. She moved with purpose toward Tiamut's head, following the crimson chains to their source.

  If she could just reach whoever was controlling these restraints, whoever had the audacity to bind a Celestial like common livestock, she could end this.

  She found far more than she'd expected.

  At the summit of Tiamut's head, nestled in a natural depression where the Celestial's crown met his skull, sat a complete laboratory that made Sersi stop in her tracks.

  Not a makeshift setup or temporary installation, but a full scientific research station that looked like it had been transported directly from Phastos' workshop. Computers hummed with processing power, holographic displays showed complex simulations, and dozens of containers filled with glowing red liquid lined workbenches.

  The chains, Sersi realized with growing horror, weren't just restraints. They were also pipes, feeding that red liquid directly into Tiamut's body at key points marked on the simulation displays.

  Two older humans moved through the lab with frantic energy, their hands flying across keyboards and controls while they muttered to each other in technical jargon Sersi couldn't quite follow.

  "Step away from the equipment," Sersi commanded, her hands glowing with golden energy as she prepared to turn their computers to dust. "Whatever you're doing to Tiamut ends now."

  Before she could release her power, crimson strings materialized around her body.

  They wrapped around her limbs, her torso, her neck with gentleness that somehow felt more threatening than violence. The energy they carried interfered with her own powers at a fundamental level, disrupting the particle manipulation she used for transmutation.

  Her powers failed completely.

  Sersi's eyes widened with shock as she tried and failed to activate her abilities. "What... how?"

  "Look who we have here?" a familiar voice said from behind her, smooth and controlled. "A cat burglar? Skulking around and sneaking in doesn't fit the honorable reputation of Sersi the Eternal."

  Sersi turned, already guessing who she'd see.

  Domino stood at the lab's edge, her black and white mercenary suit pristine despite the chaos of battle below. Her scarlet-tinted eye tracked Sersi with focus that made the Eternal feel like a bug under a microscope.

  "You." Sersi's voice came out strangled. "You did this. You chained a Celestial like an animal."

  "Technically, I just supervised," Domino corrected. "Hank and Janet did the actual science. I just made sure nothing went catastrophically wrong. Well, more wrong than chaining a space god usually goes."

  Recognition suddenly crashed over Sersi like cold water.

  The Goddess.

  The woman who'd brought 47,000 people back from death itself, who'd performed miracles on par with Celestials themselves.

  "Oh shit," Sersi breathed.

  "Yeah." Domino's smile carried zero warmth. "Oh shit indeed. Now, here's what's going to happen. You're going to call your team and tell them to stop fighting. We're all going to have a nice, calm conversation about why we're here. And if anyone tries anything stupid, I'm going to demonstrate exactly why fighting a goddess is a bad life choice. Questions?"

  Sersi's mouth opened and closed several times before words emerged. "You can't just... Tiamut is sacred. He's a Celestial. His awakening is..."

  "Going to kill seven billion people." Domino's voice went flat. "Yeah, we know. That's literally why we're here. Did you think we chained a space god for fun? This is serious business."

  "But Arishem commanded..."

  "Arishem's not coming to save you, honey." Domino's eye flashed with something dangerous.

  Sersi stared at her for a long moment, shivering in instinctive fear.

  Then she activated her emergency beacon.

  The signal pulsed across the battlefield, cutting through every Eternal's consciousness with impossible-to-ignore urgency.

  The fighting stopped immediately.

  Ikaris, who'd finally recovered from his concussion and was preparing another attack run, froze mid-flight. His head snapped toward the source of the signal, confusion replacing rage on his face.

  The other Eternals disengaged from their opponents with varying degrees of relief. Most of them were losing anyway, discovering these Mad mercenaries were a lot harder to beat than they'd anticipated.

  Druig peeled himself off the ground where Hit-Monkey had left him, his dignity now in tatters. "That's Sersi's signal. She's calling a full stop."

  "Thank god," Kingo groaned, his body covered in bruises from repeated giant-sized punches. "I was running out of energy anyway. Those tiny people hit surprisingly hard for their size."

  The mercenaries lowered their weapons upon seeing the opponents' attacking intent vanish, falling back to defensive positions but no longer actively attacking.

  "Everyone to the summit," Sersi's voice echoed across the core chamber, carried by some kind of amplification. "Including you Ajak, and Phastos too. We need everyone here for this."

  The journey to Tiamut's summit took on surreal quality.

  The Eternals and mercenaries made their way up the Celestial's body in awkward silence, using his armor plating as handholds and his joints as rest points. The scale became more apparent with each step. What looked like small ridges from a distance revealed themselves to be canyons. Pores in his skin were large enough to drive vehicles through.

  Hope kept her hand on her suit's controls, ready to shrink and fight if things went south. Deadpool kept making jokes that nobody laughed at, which was usually a sign he was actually nervous beneath his mask.

  When they all assembled at the laboratory summit, climbing over the final ridge of Tiamut's crown, the sight that greeted them killed any remaining desire for combat.

  Hank and Janet worked at their stations, barely acknowledging the new arrivals. They'd entered that state of scientific focus where the rest of the universe ceased to exist, leaving only the problem to be solved and the tools to solve it.

  And behind them, Tiamut's golden form pulsed with steady rhythm that matched a heartbeat, completely unaware of the drama unfolding on his head.

  Ikaris's eyes blazed gold as he took a step forward. "You humans have chained our god. Defiled his sacred space. This is an act of war against you mong..."

  Domino's elbow suddenly appeared on his shoulder so suddenly that Ikaris's words died mid-sentence.

  Her arm rested on Ikaris's shoulder with casual intimacy that suggested they were old friends sharing a private joke.

  "Chill," she said quietly. "It's not that serious, Homelander."

  Ikaris's entire body went rigid as dread flooded his system. Not simple fear of being hurt, he'd faced death before, but the primal recognition of standing next to an apex predator.

  Domino's presence carried weight that made his synthetic biology scream warnings. Not quite at Arishem's level, not yet, but so far above anything else Ikaris had encountered that the distance between them felt infinite.

  He tried to pull away.

  Domino's hand tightened on his shoulder, with enough pressure to make it clear that moving would require permission.

  "We're going to have a conversation," Domino continued, still using that maddeningly calm tone. "You're going to listen. Then you're going to ask intelligent questions. And we're going to work this out like adults. Sound good?"

  Ikaris managed a nod that probably looked more like a nervous twitch.

  Domino released him and stepped back, addressing the group as a whole.

  "Right. Introductions, since apparently we're doing this formally now. I'm Domino, also known as Neena Thurman. You've probably heard of me."

  Nervous nods all around.

  Most of the Eternals recognized her immediately. Who wouldn't recognize someone who'd performed feats rivaling Celestials themselves, who'd resurrected tens of thousands, stealing them from Lady Death's own domain?

  Their synthetic cores registered her presence as something simultaneously familiar and alien, human but fundamentally other in ways that made their threat assessment protocols scream warnings.

  "These are the Mercs for Money," Domino continued, gesturing at her team. "Deadpool, Slapstick, Massacre, Hit-Monkey, Gorilla Man, and Machine Man. They're with me. The folks in the lab are Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne, the two smartest people currently alive when it comes to solving your problem. And you have already met Scott and Hope."

  She paused, letting that sink in.

  "Now, I'm going to explain our plan exactly once. Pay attention, because I'm not repeating myself and this is the only way Earth survives the next few days."

  Ajak's expression shifted from shock to cautious hope. "Survival? You have a way to prevent the Emergence?"

  "Better." Domino's smile was sharp. "We're going to perform a C-section on Earth and deliver your god without killing the mother."

  Silence.

  The kind of profound, absolute silence that came from hearing something so absurd that language temporarily ceased to function.

  Then Eternals reacted simultaneously.

  "WHAT?!" The collective shout made Tiamut himself stir slightly, the Celestial's dreams almost disturbed by their volume.

  Beneath their feet, Earth's avatar manifested as a phantom only giving audience to domino, a feminine presence that carried equal parts amusement and exasperation. Gaea's voice, when it came, was felt more than heard.

  "Language, dear. The baby can hear you."

  Then she was gone, leaving behind only the faint impression of maternal fondness.

  Domino winced. "Sorry, Gaea. I'll watch my mouth."