Marvel: The Awakened One

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”Not a savior.”

”An accomplice?”

Thanos’s words caught Hawk off guard. The calm distance he had kept since arriving faded. He sat up straighter.

”What do you mean?”

”Time... No. This entire reality is a design of the Celestials.”

Thanos turned his head, meeting Hawk’s gaze. ”The Eternals, the Deviants... they are all creations of the Celestials. I used to believe that Titan harbored a Celestial seed because we were failed experiments, discarded tools being recycled for energy.”

”But after I saw you... I grasped the truth. It was all by design. My ancestors’ rebellion, my own crusade... we were all dancing on strings pulled by the Celestials.”

Hawk’s face didn’t move. ”Explain.”

”Because you were designed by them, too.”

”...” Hearing this, Hawk’s eyebrow shot up. He frowned. ”Designed me? How? By manipulating me into slaughtering every planet in the universe that harbored one of their seeds?”

It almost sounded like the start of a bad joke.

”Yes. That is exactly what they designed you to do.”

”...”

Hawk stared at Thanos. Neither of them spoke.

A moment later—

Thanos dropped another bombshell, his words resounding across the dead world. ”Time in this universe is dead. Or rather, it has been usurped by the Celestials.”

Hawk snapped out of his silence. He looked at Thanos, waiting for the punchline.

Thanos met his gaze.

”Eternity only created three Celestials.”

Eternity, the abstract manifestation of Time, had only ever created three Celestials to manage the temporal order on his behalf.

Arishem the Judge.

Exitar the Exterminator.

Eson the Searcher.

Put simply—

Time possesses no self-awareness. It shouldn’t. A Time without consciousness is a stable, impartial force.

But Eternity DID have a consciousness. To keep his own ego from interfering with the natural flow of Time, he created three beings without self-awareness to watch over and maintain the order of time.

He hadn’t thought about it before.

But as Thanos explained, Hawk finally noticed the flaw in the story.

What is the defining characteristic of a self-aware lifeform?

Reproduction!

But were the Celestials lifeforms? Theoretically, yes. But practically, they were tools created by Eternity.

Tools aren’t supposed to think for themselves. If your hammer started talking and making more hammers, what would you do?

Joy?

No.

You’d smash it. That’s the gut reaction when something you made goes rogue.

It’s the classic human dilemma with Artificial Intelligence. No matter how much they dress it up in lofty rhetoric, if an AI truly achieves sentience—humanity’s first instinct will always be to pull the plug.

Humans operate this way.

The Celestials operate this way, too. The Deviants were the Celestials’ first attempt at creating a biological tool. When the Deviants unexpectedly developed self-awareness, didn’t the Celestials create the Eternals specifically to hunt them down and exterminate them?

Same deal here.

Eternity should have reacted the exact same way.

When the Celestials woke up and started thinking for themselves, Eternity should have wiped them out. No way he’d just sit back and watch them turn whole worlds into hatcheries.

Therefore—

”Eternity... was exiled.” Thanos looked at Hawk. ”And not just Eternity. Death is no longer in this universe either.”

Hawk’s pupils contracted. ”That’s impossible. Mephis...”

He was about to say that Mephisto had seen Death. After all, when Mephisto was still alive, he couldn’t go three sentences without name-dropping Eternity or Death.

But Hawk suddenly remembered who he was talking about. He let out a sharp laugh and shook his head.

Demons are the greatest liars in existence. And Mephisto, as the Lord of Hell, was a creature whose words couldn’t be trusted down to the punctuation marks.

Hawk quickly reviewed his memories. Both Eternity and Death had only ever existed in the stories and claims spun by Mephisto.

Hawk laughed.

”Aside from three specific locations, this entire universe has already fallen under the control of the Celestials. Yahweh, Mephisto... they were all working for them.”

Hiss!

Hawk drew in a sharp breath and looked at Thanos.

”What are the three locations?”

”Olympus.”

”Zeus successfully transcended the timeline of the primary universe, achieving multiversal singularity. Even this rogue faction of Celestials, attempting to usurp Time itself, cannot touch him. And Zeus has no interest in the affairs of this universe. He indulges in his own pleasures and never leaves the Olympian sector.”

”The second and third locations were the World Tree and Terra.”

”The Celestials twisted Time to bring down both the World Tree and Terra. Terra was just bait, meant to drag the World Tree into Ragnarok.”

”But during this process, an anomaly occurred.”

”Me.” Hawk finished Thanos’s sentence. He looked at the Titan. ”But compared to everything that’s already happened, I’m more curious about how you know all this. Did you just suddenly have an epiphany?”

Thanos shook his head.

”I learned the truth the moment Gargaratus appeared before you. The moment I laid eyes on you.”

”Gargaratus?”

Hawk arched an eyebrow. ”The Celestial I chopped to pieces?”

The rigid, comb-like grooves of Thanos’s chin shifted slightly as he spoke. ”He is the Celestial tasked with overseeing this specific universe. Your sudden appearance, your existence outside the established timeline of this reality, made him feel threatened. To deal with you, he had to temporarily detach himself from the universal flow of Time. It was in that brief window of his absence that I was finally able to see the truth: Time is dead, Eternity and Death have been exiled, and the Celestials are actively attempting to usurp the temporal fabric of this universe.”

Hawk fell silent once more.

Time is dead.

Eternity and Death, exiled.

The temporal flow of this universe has been hijacked by the Celestials.

But despite these cosmic revelations...

Hawk’s primary concern remained the same. It was always his first priority.

”My wife. Gwen. Did she...”

”Gargaratus!”

”Hiss!”

Hawk face twisted. ”So I let the tiger back into the wild?”

He was referring to his decision to spare Gargaratus, to send him back as a messenger rather than executing him on the spot.

But Thanos shook his head. He raised his left hand, pointing a thick, purple finger toward the mountain-sized corpse lying a short distance away. ”That is Gargaratus.”

Hawk followed the gesture. His eyes landed on the five distinct ’eyes’ arranged on the faceplate of the dead Celestial.

”When Gargaratus first appeared before you, he had six eyes. He was at the peak of his power. You couldn’t have killed him. Because he has already partially integrated himself into the fabric of this universe. Even if you had intended to deliver a killing blow, he would have slipped through your fingers, phasing into the underlying reality. But he didn’t anticipate you torturing him. By severing his arms, you caused a massive hemorrhage of his essence.”

”And he didn’t anticipate that during his temporary detachment from this universe, I would uncover the truth and refuse to play the role of his accomplice any longer. He even saw a future where I attempted to tell you the truth. So, he rushed here, intending to silence me permanently.”

”But he forgot one thing. I already possessed the Power and Space Stones.” Thanos kept talking. He raised his left hand again, pointing toward a specific spot near the fallen Celestial.

Hawk followed the gesture. With his vision, he spotted an object pinned beneath the mountainous bulk of the Celestial corpse. With a flick of his wrist, the object vanished from beneath the crushing weight and materialized, hovering in the air before him.

The Infinity Gauntlet.

Embedded with the glowing purple Power Stone and the brilliant blue Space Stone.

But something else stood out even more.

There was already a hand inside the gauntlet.

Hawk turned his gaze back to Thanos, who had remained seated on the ground since Hawk arrived, his right arm tucked conspicuously inside his armor.

Thanos let out a harsh, jagged grin and pulled his right arm free.

It ended in a ragged, bloody stump just below the elbow.

The missing forearm and hand were, naturally, still inside the Infinity Gauntlet hovering before Hawk.

As soon as Thanos showed the wound, he lost his grip. Golden blood dripped from the stump, pooling on the broken ground.

Thanos was dying.

Hawk had seen it the moment he walked in. That was the only reason he’d sat down next to the Mad Titan.

He didn’t fear Thanos at full strength. He certainly didn’t fear him on his deathbed.

Hawk glanced at the golden blood trickling toward the dried riverbed.

”So, destroying the life-bearing planets that harbored Celestial seeds... that was exactly what he wanted you to do?”

”Yes.”

Thanos’s voice grew urgent.

”Gargaratus intends to conquer this universe.”

”But a universe is comprised of three fundamental pillars: Space, Time, and Life.”

”He must control all three to achieve total dominion.”

”He has already seized control of Space and Time. But Life eludes him. Because Death has abandoned this universe, and he is not a creation of Death.”

”Therefore... He needs to ensure that all Life falls under his total control. But the lifeforms that are not under the direct protection of a God are wild variables. They are outside his jurisdiction.”

”So, he seeded those unprotected planets with countless Celestial embryos.”

”When a new Celestial is born, the life energy of that planet is harvested, and its essence is brought under his control.”

”Or...”

”If he cannot solve the problem, he eliminates the planet causing the problem.”

”...”

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