Inside the middle of the Earth, a gigantic glob of golden energy suddenly started thrumming with activity as it felt a connection being established with it before a pull drew in the consciousness inside the blob of energy.
"Your consciousness has been stirred, Tiamut. This means your emergence shouldn't be too far off." A gigantic black and golden armor Celestial stood in front of Tiamut's summoned consciousness as he addressed his golden armored brethren.
Like every other notable Celestial out there, the one in front of Tiamut had a designated name and title – Oneg the Prober.
"Yes, it should. I feel urgency in your tone, Oneg. For you to be here personally suggests that something has happened in the multiverse. Something outside its expected course." Tiamut was as connected to other Celestials as they were to each other so he was very well aware of basic information but there were still things that were outside his scope of omniscience.
"You would be correct in your statement. Arishem has judged it necessary that you emerge as soon as possible. I also came here personally with a question in mind: The cause, the main pivot, of the stir in the multiverse emerged from your universe, your planet specifically. Does he know about you yet? Are you in any danger?" Most of the Celestial's roles often collide with one another but they were carefully carried out while taking special care not to step in each other's way. Oneg's was to enquire and verify.
Like Arishem was the main spokesman of the Celestials and his voice was their ever-leading judgment, it was Oneg's and a few other's role to bring information on anything that caught their attention to Arishem and though Arishem had said that the man had made contact with the consciousness of Tiamut, Oneg had taken it upon himself to verify all claims from Tiamut himself.
"He does know about me as we've spoken once but other than that, I'm afraid he hasn't made any other connection with me. And as for whether I'm in any danger…" Tiamut remembered the agreement between him and Draul and how he proposed to facilitate his emergence without harming Earth if Tiamut's information about the stones were true, and considering he's left the universe and came back stronger, Tiamut could only acknowledge his part of keeping to their agreement. "… I don't believe I'm in any danger despite being in his senses all day long. He's rather amiable and level-headed should the need for a conversation ever arise." Tiamut gave his honest impression of Draul to Oneg, not seeing the need of withholding anything from his brethren Celestial when they were already aware of his presence.
"I see. I will tell Arishem of your impressions of the human, but unto another question: how long will it take before your emergence?" Oneg asked, being extra careful not to scan the planet and risk having his presence known to the singularity of this universe.
"Hmm." Unlike Oneg, Tiamut wasn't under the impression that he needed to hide himself nor his actions from Draul as he was constantly under his attention, whether passively or not. Draul had promised him a few planets worth of energy should the time for his emergence come since it would actually take some time to find a universe like that than just syncing him up with a random planet out there in the universe. "There are quite a few factors in play before my emergence but it should be a human decade at least or less than two at most. I'm afraid I will not be available in these trying times for the multiverse but ironically, my emergence is not in my power to quicken."
Oneg remained silent at Tiamut's words because he knew how true they were. A Celestial seed simply could not awaken without the required energy of billions and sometimes trillions of sentient life force. While they were the most ardent advocates of life, they were also the most stoic race that dealt in the favor of the majority and the greater good. What was a negligible few billions compared to the life of one Celestial? What was the same worth of the few billion when then compared to an entire universe? To the multiverse? It was not even worth considering the disparity and level of importance between the two.
"I see." He started, "I will deliver this information so you should await Arishem's verdict." Oneg said before disappearing from Tiamut's senses, leaving the golden clad Celestial on his own to mule about the new choices that were opening up to him with each experience.
"I wonder what Draul would do in such a setting. It'll no doubt be something profound and yet simple at the same time."
…
Draul took a simple step back and seamlessly evaded Yelena's punch while at the same time bringing his hand down in a cleaving motion which forced the young girl to retreat as it turned out to be the correct move as the ground she had been stepping on gained a fine incision without any force acting on it.
At another place a bit farther from them was Natasha and Ororo, both levitating while facing each other in a meditating stance; legs crossed and fingers intertwined together, letting their aura coat their body and paying no attention to what was happening.
Unlike before, Yelena's body was fully covered in lightning even while she was stationary which gave her some form of super strength and heightened all her physical abilities. Improved senses which included bioelectric sensing and thermal sensing, heightened danger sense, improved regeneration which mainly worked on her energy output, heightened durability, and like the rest of them she had some form of resistance towards other energy forms.
She was making real good of the ability she chose for herself to the point that compared to the others, she had had the most progress ability-wise. Due to the fact that she lived with two lightning users, and also that she'd seen them fight with it most times than not, it was way easier for her to pick up bits and pieces of their utilization and apply it to hers. There was also the fact that Draul had once commented on her abilities and how if she went fast enough, she could break through the space-time barrier and move inside the space-time continuum and time travel. The theory that if something could go past light speed then it was quite possible that it could time travel was one that had been proposed for years now but like most revolutionary theories that science had put forth, it had never been proven, at least until now.
If a living Time Stone said that with enough speed one could time travel, then that was as much proof as anything could ever need to be valid.
"Again. You're still holding yourself back subconsciously." Draul commented as he watched Yelena's eyebrows twitch in annoyance. Unlike the girl, Draul wasn't moving at that high a speed but the space around him was so thick that she was finding it had to move a single limb, talk less two.
"I wouldn't if you removed that shitty space around you." She huffed but the lightning around her body only crackled more fiercely.
"That's a misconception of your own doing, Yelena. You can already phase through material things, why are you limiting yourself from phasing through space too? You are too focused on me instead of yourself. Now again." This exercise had been going on for a little over an hour and Yelena was slowly getting frustrated because no matter what she did, Draul always forced her to move back with every single motion of his hand. It wasn't fair how stupidly powerful he was!
Flooding every single cell in her body with lightning, she disappeared, running faster than the very vibrations she produced with every little movement of her body straight towards Draul.
The only part of Draul that she could see that was moving at the same speed as hers were his eyes. His eyes were following every single movement of hers in a way that was borderline creepy that she would have definitely voiced a complaint had this not been an important training exercise.
Pushing her thoughts about how creepy his eye movements were, she braced herself and stepped inside his space which made her feel that she was dropped into a vat of quick acting super adhesive. It felt as if she was wearing over a thousand kilograms of weight strapped to each of her limbs while running through quicksand.
All she needed to do was touch him and the automatic win would be hers but the space in here was wack as hell to the point that she didn't know if he was at an arm's length away or a 100 meters away.
Before she could ponder much on the distance, she felt his hand moving, a little bit slower than she was which made the experience all the more confusing as she was sure she was a lot faster than his bodily functions due to his restrictions but his hand movement was a little behind hers, a negligible difference, and though she was pretty close, at least according to what her senses told her, she was once again forced to move back as his attack was almost instantaneous.
Draul let out a frustrated sigh and looked at her with an expression that told just how pissed off he was by her repeated actions.
"What? You know there was no way I could have dodged that." Yelena defended herself as soon as the stare was leveled on her. "In case you don't understand, trying to 'phase' is a lot harder for a normal speedster than you can imagine."
"But you're not a normal speedster, are you? This goes beyond just vibrating at a higher frequency. You have to connect with what you're vibrating with, not in a phasing sense but in how your cells respond to it."
"And it's not coming to me that easy. Maybe if you told me without going through circles, then I would have picked it up rather than playing tag with you for an hour and pissing you off in the process." The two stared at each other, none willing to concede ground to the other. This continued on for a minute until Yelena arrived at a misconception of hers: Draul had all the time in the world…
The frustration that coursed through her body was felt by Draul who smirked as he saw her backing off and politely asking him what it was that she was doing wrong.
"It's the same concept that Ororo uses in traveling with lightning. She becomes lightning in a way that shouldn't have been possible. A few Gods of the Sky can do it but not all. Case in point – Thor. He's not completely in sync with his own divinity which is what is impeding his growth and unless he finds what he's lacking, his Authority over the Sky will stagnate. Rather than just phasing through objects, your speed basically connects two distances in space and time with each other with the fastest time possible. All you have to do is find another way to access that route and you'll find yourself moving quicker instead of just going faster. Super speed is not always meant to progress at a straight line with ironic speed. Rather than move faster towards me, find a way to get to me quicker, either by moving faster, not advisable… or moving through space itself. You don't have to run through every square meter to reach me, just connect to the point you want to get to and bam! You're there."
"…A portal?" She asked flabbergasted but Draul corrected.
"A breach. One in space. Like I always say, there is no linear ability. The path you take determines how your abilities will grow."
Yelena appeared deep in thought as she mulled over Draul's words. It was pretty theoretical at best, but then again he was Draul. He could manipulate reality as he wished and if he said it was possible, then it was entirely possible. Which meant she could do it.
"Again!"
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