Chapter 244: Self Reflection
4th October 2012, Middle of the Pacific Ocean
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
I raised the stone in the air, and it floated near my temple and glowed. I gave Ego a sad look, “If only I could believe you, Ego. You were such a disappointment. I hope that you will find peace in Death.”
Before he could protest, I put both of my hands on the head of the celestial and channeled the Mind Stone’s power. I shredded the entirety of whatever made Ego, Ego. In the end, there was nothing left but a corpse, a planet that was dead in spirit and yet still alive.
I watched as the energy projection started to fade away. It might have been a trick of the light, but I could feel him smile at the end of the torment that was his life. And thus spelled the end of Ego, the living planet, a broken celestial who was more human than myself.
With my fight done, I reflected on my actions. It was a shame, really, that I had to shred his mind like I did. Perhaps I could have fixed him, somehow, using the Mind Stone. It was an unlikely possibility, even with an infinity stone in my possession; the mind of a celestial who was probably billions of years old was different, alien, and just something that I couldn’t grasp, as I haven’t ascended myself. And even if I did, even if I could brainwash him somehow, I had no guarantee that he would never be able to reverse the process. Ego was older than even my planet, he had to have a few backups in case something happened. The only reason that I’m not panicking and making sure that I’m ready for whatever revenge Ego would have should he return, was the fact that I felt his soul pass on after I destroyed his mind.
Because there are many types of dying, and in this case, the death of a living being occurs when its soul stops being anchored to this realm and moves on to the afterlife. As I stated before, a soul is anchored to the mind and the body of an individual. Destroying the mind destabilizes the trinity and the soul is released, and yet the body remains. The celestial is now technically in a vegetative state and will slowly start to fade away over time. The planet, his corpse, will keep absorbing cosmic energy at a slower pace as the body dies. The process should take thousands if not millions of years, meaning that the planet is now technically a battery of cosmic energy that no one can use, save for one person, Peter Quill.
I have no idea how the hell Ego managed to tie his son’s celestial heritage to his own life force, but if I had a guess, it would be that when he impregnated women all over the galaxy, he designed his sperm to act that way. Even if he was a crappy father, no one could deny that Ego’s expertise in biological manipulation was unparalleled. I could see him doing this to make sure that whatever offspring he has would be loyal to him. Because who would betray someone if doing so meant that they would lose access to godly power and immortality?
Which brings me to the current dilemma, with Ego out of the question, should I recruit Peter Quill. By my calculations, the mess with the Power Stone should happen in a year or so, which would be the best time to recruit the Guardians of the Galaxy. Having a half celestial at my side for the coming conflict would be a great boon, especially one that is also half human, meaning that he will be very protective of this planet.
One of the biggest advantages to my new cosmic core is the fact that I can now use my powers in space. I wasn’t bound to the Earth’s orbit anymore, or places that naturally generate ambient magic like Asgard, I could now travel the stars and could now recruit people from all over the universe for the coming crisis, and I pretty much have a spaceship on hand; Ego did come to Earth in one, and with him dead, I’m definitely taking it for myself.
But now is not the time to do this. My current priority is the restoration of the Ragnarök cycle, and my deal with Odin. No matter what people over the universe like to say, Asgard is mighty, and its support would be welcome during the final fight against Entropy.
The convergence is nearing, and we need to be ready in the coming fight against Those Who Sit Above in Shadow. Plans were being made, battles planned, for it will be one of the biggest events in the history of the multiverse.
With a sigh, I returned the Mind Stone into my pocket dimension. Using it without an artifact to channel its powers tired me. But as exhausted as I was, I couldn’t distract myself from Ego’s situation. This was a celestial who was more human than I was. He had the passion, the emotions, that really resembled that of a mortal, more than I have for centuries.
I know that this was due to his mind being broken, to a madness caused by loneliness and destruction. Wasn’t it ironic that mortals dream of unlimited powers, and yet a being with unlimited power at his disposal had knowingly crippled himself just for the illusion of being mortal. There was an irony to it, one that I found amusing yet heartbreaking. It showed the uselessness of a hunger for power. And in truth, I could understand Ego’s plight, and if I was honest, it was likely that the other celestials would have joined him in his madness if they didn’t have their goals engraved into them by the cosmic entities of life and death.
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They were given an unreachable goal, especially for this reason. So that they would never be able to stop and realize how pointless their existence truly is, so that they would never be able to start thinking about their existence outside of their unending goal, to promote life in the universe, to make sure that it grows. And slowly the celestials would stop being born as life propagates in the universe, and they inevitably die. One day, the last celestial will die and only mortals will live throughout the universe, until its heat death, that is. For everything that has a beginning has an end. It was one of the most fundamental laws of the universe, a law that no one could ever cheat, for nothing is truly eternal and Death will one day claim all.
The question I asked myself was, should I try what Ego failed? I could already feel Erebus’ sacrifice being worn down, and my humanity slipping away. It was even more evident by the fact that I used Death’s powers to fight the celestial. And with that done, I should have to ask myself if, should I lose the entirety of my humanity, if I ascend fully, should I fall to madness just to regain my mortality once more? It was possible, Ego proved that, and yet I would destroy my mind, alter my trinity. And my mind would forever be changed on a fundamental way. In a way, I would die and someone else, with my memories would take up the reins. That was unacceptable. Death would be preferable to changing the way I think. I wouldn’t be me anymore if I did.
And that was the truth, for Ego the celestial had died when he tried to descend and all that remained was a mad copy with his memories, Ego the living planet. It truly was a heartbreaking story, of a being falling to loneliness and despair, without a goal to distract itself with. So, he created a goal, one born of foolishness and despair, one that would have caused Death on an unprecedented scale all over the galaxy, a genocide on a galactic scale. I hoped that I would never fall to that level, and yet I could see it happening to me as well.
In the end, it was a problem in the future, probably one after the fight with Entropy, if I even survive it, anyway. As for now, I had bigger problems. The beginning of my fight with Ego, before we started using powerful attacks, happened in Hogsmeade, in the middle of the day, meaning that there had to be a lot of witnesses, and I won’t be able to remove their memories at the same time. Wizards had a subconscious defense against the mind arts, even if it was weak. The protections wouldn’t mean anything if I tried to change their memories one person at a time, which would take forever, that’s not counting the fact that I have no idea how many witnesses there were and the fact that a lot of them would be children that saw a little bit of the battle from Hogwarts.
I could use reality magic, but it would take a lot out of me, and I wasn’t as precise with my cosmic core as I was with my magical one. I couldn’t even use the mist as a shortcut since it only affects non magicals.
In the end, I cannot change what happened, and at least not a single life was lost during the fight, outside of Ego’s that is; I didn’t feel any magical soul die during the fight. As for now, I needed to speak with Rose quickly to help smooth things over. But before that, I couldn’t have the non-magical world know about the scale of the battle, and with the kind of fire power Ego and I were throwing around, they will have inevitably picked up on it.
Honestly, it was getting too troublesome to keep protecting this planet, even if it was partly my fault that Ego came here himself. To deal with the non-magical world, I decided to just use the mist. I’m not a mage anymore, and neither was Ego, meaning that it didn’t automatically alter any footage of the fight. I was still the caster of the spell and knew how to manipulate it, so I took a deep breath and started to work.
I didn’t know how much time passed since I started manipulating the mist, but it took a lot of effort and I was barely standing from my exhaustion afterwards, but it was done. As far as the non-magical world was concerned, a relatively large meteorite fell into the pacific which caused all these disturbances that their sensors got.
With that done, I only needed to deal with the mutant higher ups who knew about my encounter with Ego, and the magical world. I needed to call Rose to clear things up, not to mention, tell Selene that I’m alright. She probably sensed the energy that we used in our fight and was worried sick.
I steeled my mind and teleported home where I was immediately hugged by Selene, “I was so worried, what happened?”
“Well, I went to clear my head for a bit, and I got into a fight.”
She let go and glared at me, “What the fuck, Morrigan? I felt how much energy you were sending out; this wasn’t your usual fight.”
I nodded, “well, remember Ego, the celestial that I used to make a cosmic core for myself?” she nodded and I continued, “well, apparently he felt his seedling die, and didn’t like it. He had a mad goal that he wanted me to join him in, that would have resulted in the Death of pretty much every civilization in the galaxy. I refused, and well, things escalated from there.”
She gave me an incredulous look, “Things escalated? Are you mad? The news have noticed your little solar flare all the way from space. Have you lost all sense of subtlety?”
“Look, he was very strong, alright.”
She sighed in exasperation, “At least tell me that he’s not coming back.”
I nodded, “I killed him, don’t worry.”
I could feel the impressed gaze she had when I told her. Celestials were the stuff of legends, far more powerful than most elder gods, and the fact that I defeated one, even if Ego was half mad and had crippled himself, was very impressive.
Before I could say anything, I felt Rose slamming the door open and exclaiming, “What the hell did you do?”
Well, shit. This isn’t going to be a good day, is it?
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