Chapter 253: Heart and Feather

4^th October 2012, Eternal Star Ship (Domo)

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

I loved Wanda with all my heart, and I just couldn’t bring myself to kill her. Instead, a small idea popped in my head.

I nodded, and I said the word solemnly, “Deal!”

Thankfully, Arishem didn’t notice the slight shift of posture and in power as I used Death’s power for a fraction of a second as our cosmic energy entwined to bind our words. I stifled a smug grin. I had won that round, even if he didn’t know it.

Honestly, I didn’t care about the celestials outside of their help against Entropy. In the small chance that I survive the encounter – unlike the me from the alternate future that future Wanda destroyed – I don’t mind going against the celestials, if my planet is protected from their wrath.

I didn’t stay too much after this. I just gave the celestial the mind stone and chose to leave as quickly as possible since the deal I just made left a bad taste in my mouth. Even if I tricked Arishem and wasn’t bound to hold up my end of the deal, the celestial had tried to get me to kill my own daughter.

It reminded me just how merciless the celestials truly are. Many had worshiped them as gods and I could understand, for their power was as godly as they came, but underneath all of the pretenses of goodness they pretended to represent, they were beings of pure pragmatism that had bound themselves to the goal they had been born with, never understanding what it means to live.

They were so alien to life that Death held no meaning to them. It was why I never tried to convince Arishem by showing him that Entropy’s ambitions would kill him off alongside everyone. He wouldn’t care at all about that but telling him that he was planning on killing off the entire multiverse, including the life they had cultivated for so long, it would have made their goals absolute and Arishem simply couldn’t just happen.

It was that kind of paradoxical thinking that always made me wary of dealing with celestials in general. They just thought differently, and that made them both extremely predictable in their planning and just unpredictable in their reactions to certain events. Arishem was a prime example of this. When he created the deviants, beings filled with traces of cosmic energy, in his hope of them hunting down intelligent life’s predator to make sure to hatch their celestial eggs, he didn’t even bother giving them sentience, meaning that they were barely more than rabid animals, but the biggest problem was the fact that he allowed them to learn, to evolve, which allowed them to deviate from their initial purpose. It was a mistake but instead of hunting down the deviants, he created another race of automata, of eternals, that would obey him unconditionally, but at the same time, he allowed them to learn similarly to the deviants, but this time, they were barely more than programs that were evolving with every single input of data.

The eternals grew and became full-fledged artificial intelligence instead of the intelligent programs that they were. They were now fully capable of opposing him, and they had the intelligence of doing, unlike the deviants who became savages who craved flesh. Because life wasn’t just exclusive to biological entities, and now every eternal has developed a soul. Even if Arishem chooses to wipe out their memories, he didn’t destroy the soul. And with the mind and the soul being so connected, the eternals could still remember what happened before they were erased. Arishem had pretty much created a slave race that was slowly but surely going to rebel against him and would oppose their purpose due to their attachment to the planets they were sent to after thousands of years of living there.

Sometimes, celestials were such shortsighted beings for entities that have existed for billions of years. The truth is that celestials are just solitary beings, engrossed in their creations and nothing else. It’s what allowed their numbers to dwindle, after all. Some of the actions they did during their war with their enemy were completely illogical in battle, which allowed Knull to hunt them down one by one, crippling their strength, until they decided to form a council of celestials that kept tabs on one another.

I shook my head at the thought; there was no point in wallowing in the past. No matter how distasteful I found the celestials, they were still one of, if not the, strongest force in this universe. And with access to the rest of the multiverse locked away, they were the best allies I could hope to have in the coming conflict.

I stepped out of the room and was met by the two eternals who were waiting for me, looking curious. They probably didn’t expect my meeting to go well, “So, what did you agree on?”

I shrugged, “He will need to speak to the council before making a decision, but we’ve come to an agreement.”

Ikaris perked up, “So, you’re going to allow the celestial egg to grow?”

I shrugged, “probably in a few years, but that wasn’t part of the deal either way. By the time to egg accumulates enough life force to hatch, humanity would have travelled through the stars, meaning that they wouldn’t be extinct anymore.”

The eternal gritted his teeth and I commented, “I see that you’re not happy with this decision. Do you truly hate this planet and the human race so much that you’re this desperate to destroy it as quickly as possible and lose your memories?”

Ikaris seemed shocked at my response and glared at me, “It is our purpose, the reason why we’re created.”

I shrugged, “If your entire purpose is to just hunt down deviants and then do nothing for thousands of years and do it again and again, not remembering the person you used to be in every cycle, then how can you say that you’re alive.”

“We’re not alive,” he denied.

I just shrugged, “I can feel your soul, Ikaris, it shines brightly. You have an incredible gift, one that people cherish for as much as they can, life, and yet you still cling of the idea of being nothing more than an unfeeling machine. Tell me, Ikaris, can an unfeeling machine have friends? Can an unfeeling machine fall in love, like you have with Sersi?”

Ikaris froze and I saw Ajak smile slightly at my words. Finally, I continued, “Think very deeply about what I had just said, Ikaris, and take a good look at yourself. You are alive, Ikaris, and now you need to learn to live.”

I turned around and left the starship and teleported home, where Selene awaited me, “So, how did it go?”

I shrugged, “As well as it could have, I suppose.”

She looked deeply at me and shook her head, “No, there’s something bothering you.”

I let out a resigned sigh; that woman really knows me like the back of her hand, “Fine, we made a deal. He will take my plight to the celestial council and in exchange, I gave him the mind stone and promised that I’ll join the council of celestial after the conflict with Entropy. He also wanted me to kill Wanda.”

Selene’s eyes widened slightly before she schooled her expressions, “You made a solemn oath to kill your own daughter.”

I shook my head, “No, I used my Death Powers to kill the deal as soon as it was struck. He is still bound by my terms, but I am not bound to his.”

I had to admit that using Death’s powers was kinda like cheating. I could kill anything, even an idea, or in this case a binding. It was very costly since it was made by a celestial, but it usually would have been impossible for me to get out of it.

Selene shook her head, “You might not be bound to kill her anymore, but if Arishem finds out that you’ve deceived him, he won’t be happy.”

I let out a telekinetic blast that destroyed the furniture around us, but barely perturbed my wife, “What would you have me do? He wanted to kill my daughter, Selene.”

She nodded, “I’m just stating the obvious. What you did was the right thing, and worst come to shove, if we’re really pressed, we can say that he didn’t specify when you should kill Wanda, and if he presses the issue, you could just kill her. You’ve lost nothing by nullifying the oath.”

I glared at Selene. I knew my wife more than anyone in the world. She had given up on humanity a very long time ago, even before I met her. She barely considered them to be barely better than animals. Which to her, they might as well be, considering how quickly their lives end compared to us. And in many ways, while I tried to hold on to my humanity, to the pain that defined me as a human being, Selene detached herself. To her, Wanda was barely more than an interesting pet, nothing more, while to me, she was my daughter. It was the subject of many fights over the centuries. Selene would sacrifice Wanda without hesitation, and just didn’t understand why I would risk myself for her.

I released my defeated sigh, it really wasn’t Selene’s fault she was this disregarding of human lives, “you know I don’t like it when you say things like that.”

She nodded, “I’m sorry, but concerning what we’re dealing with here, sacrificing Wanda is a viable option. Would you really not give up Wanda for the sake for the entire multiverse?”

I shook my head, “Let’s just not think about it. It entirely depends on the decision of the council.”

Unfortunately, the decision didn’t leave my head in the next few days, and every time I saw Wanda, I couldn’t feel anything but guilt. Was I really prepared to sacrifice Wanda for the entire multiverse. I shook my head; things might not even come to this, and knowing the celestials, Arishem wouldn’t even be answering me anytime soon, meaning that I had the time to prepare accordingly.

I was distracted by the appearance of an owl of all things. I had allowed the avian birds to enter the manor if they didn’t carry anything that was magical in anyway. I took a closer look at the bird in question and recognized it to be that of one of my informants in MACUSA.

It was odd, I had explicitly asked that I not be contacted by anyone in the magical world except if it was an emergency. I removed the letter from the owl and gave her a few treats, before reading the note. I reread the note once more before I completely burst into laughter.

Selene was sitting behind me, sipping her cup of tea, asked, “What happened?”

I just hand her the note, and then she let out an amused chuckle, “Really? The court of shadows is still a thing?”

I nodded, “Yeah, I actually forgot they existed. They seemed kinda useless after the war with Grindelwald began. And with Dumbledore pretty much taking over magical Europe, all they did during their meetings is give him meaningless posts hoping he’d hang himself somehow.”

Selene sobered up, “Wait, are you serious? They tried to get rid of Dumbledore by keeping him busy?”

I shrugged, “it worked. The man had barely enough time to make too many plans. He was an old man by the time he actually started putting things in motion properly. They’ve been doing it on an international scale. I pretty much neutered the council in the United States, to avoid them trying to get involved in the current government and in mutant affairs, since they’re such a big problem here.”

“They sound somewhat dangerous if they’re spread on such a big scale. Why didn’t you just destroy it?”

I shrugged, “they had their uses. Even if they’re a bunch of arrogant assholes, they do have a stabilizing influence in the magical world. While it didn’t work in the last century, there were practically no large-scale wars from the founding of the organization until Grindelwald’s rise. Add in that the organization is usually made up of the backbone of the magical economy, getting rid of them would result in a lot of chaos, something that would take my whole attention, and I was too busy to deal with it.”

“And now, they’re going after you…”

I nodded, “I guess they are.”

Now the question was, what was I going to do about it?

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