Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).
The Arctic, Final resting place of an unnamed Celestial[August 2015]
–Jack Sullivan–
His gaze swiveled as he tried to locate the source of the voice when, all of a sudden, a light bloomed right in front of him, floating on top of the toe of the Celestial.
The Celestial was lying down upright, with its legs splayed out in front of it, and its torso leaning on a pillar of ice, with a giant hole in the middle of the chest of the Celestial which didn't leak anything, confirming his theory that Celestials were essentially giant beings made up of just energy and they made the armour around their true bodies to protect that relatively vulnerable interior.
Ofcourse, all of that was not useful at the moment because he was feeling an astounding amount of energy from that single orb of light.
"Who are you?" His eyes narrowed as he thought of the ways he could get out of this place if shit went down, shit that he wasn't expecting to do gown because who expected a million year old Celestial corpse to have company?
He was still brandishing the Power Stone in the general direction of the light, with his barriers spread out all around him, ready to boot the hell out of this place, while flooding the entire space with raw energy from the Power Stone. It was taxing to hold it in his hand but as long as he didn't do anything aside from fancy light shows, he would be fine.
"Who am I? I am the being whose former body you were about to pillage," The voice spoke but not in the same way as humans did. It sounded right in his mind and yet, he knew that none of his mind barriers were being breached. He still made sure that it was safe though but he had a hunch that it was not mind intrusion of any sort.
Then, his mind screeched to a halt, as he processed the sentence.
"I'm sorry, Wh-Wh" He stuttered as he leaned forward, some of the tension releasing from his body as he tried to process in the utter ridiculousness that the light was spouting, "What did you say just now?"
The light bobbed up and down, and despite knowing that the small mote of light contained enough energy to turn entire states into little more than giant craters in the ground, he couldn't help but feel that the blob of light was entirely harmless. He didn't drop the Power Stone though.
"As I said, I am the spirit of the corpse which you were about to steal," THe emphasis on steal did not go unnoticed by him but at that moment, he was still too shell shocked to find that the dead celestial was in fact, not dead but merely in the form of another energy. Then, he processed it and hastily clarified the situation.
"No, no! You are misunderstanding. I was not here to steal your body. What will I even do with that? I was just here out of curiosity because I sensed a ton of energy in the middle of nowhere," He couldn't just tell him that he knew about the dead celestial body from his meta knowledge and came to check it out as a cool hidden place on Earth, something that humans would not be able to discover for at least another couple of decades if the current rate of progress was followed and Tony was able to reverse engineer, improve and then disseminate the technology blueprint he was given.
"Hmm," The blob of light hummed and then, passed through his barriers as if they were not even there. He scrambled back and then was struck by the pressure of the Celestial body behind him, forcing him to evade the blob of light by travelling sideways, with the Power Stone held tightly in his one hand, ready to unleash all kinds of damage in this place before fleeing.
The fleeting thought of what could happen if he let the Power Stone's energy run rampant this deep below the Earth's surface went through his mind, further reducing his options.
"You are only partially lying. You are not here to steal my corpse. What were you here for then?" The blob floated right next to the chest wound in the Celestial corpse and once again, transmitted those words directly to his mind, or rather his soul….
Oh.
He abruptly stopped mid air, his mind finally catching up, "You are a…soul? But how?"
"Yes, it took you long enough to process that" The light said, transmitting the words straight to his soul by some masterful manipulation of Astral Energy from within the Astral Realm while also being visible in the material world.
Damn, that would require….a very powerful soul.
"I see, that makes sense. Your physical shell was punctured, and your energy form was dying but every living being has a soul, strong or weak it matters not. But you? You were a celestial, your soul must be the strongest so, what? You were able to escape to the Astral Realm?"
He couldn't help but let out all the curiosity and excitement in the face of something that was literally supposed to be impossible, according to Kamar Taj's own guidebooks about the soul and how its nature came to be.
"You are perceptive though it should not be surprising since you are a practitioner of the inferior energy," The blob said and his mind ran to process the implications. The first one was quite easy, that being that dimensional energy was inferior compared to Cosmic energy, which was true. The second being that the Celestial had a way of observing him, even from here OR the Soul could travel. He didn't know which one was more disturbing.
"Yeah, I do practice the Mystic Arts. DO tell me, though, what are you doing here or rather, on Earth? I assume that even as a disembodied soul, you are strong enough to leave the planet and establish base somewhere else,"
"That, my friend, is a long answer. Are you sure you have the time?"
What an odd question to ask. "Sure do,"
"Alright, finally! Someone who can listen and reply," He could feel the excitement in the voice before the light blob did something that released a pulse of energy throughout the cavern, forcing him to tense again.
"Oh relax, I am not here to harm you. If I wanted to, I could have hidden this place from you or moved it every time you came nearby. Also, put that Stone away, it could destroy this planet, that you call home,"
The blob of light that was once a Celestial, beings of pure logic, sure was sassy as he looked around, ready for an attack of some sort.
"Alright, so, Mr.Sullivan, I was an unnamed Celestial. I have taken upon a name in the time I have spent on this planet but that is neither here nor there. As you can imagine, I died and normally, we aren't supposed to be converting ourselves into soul forms, that would be a desecration of our life code and that is frowned upon in the Celestial community BUT our leader–"
"Leader, as in Arishem?"
"Ohhh, you know of him as well. Great, then this makes things simpler. You see, due to an unrelated event, Celestials were…not…many in number. Yes, let's go with that. So, as an experiment, our leader forced one of the foremost experts in Souls, who happened to live on this dirtball, to turn my dying spirit into a soul, with my consent of course,"
He nodded, following the story along. So, Arishem, in a bid to do something about the depleted Celestial population, decided to do some sort of experiment to see if Celestials could survive as souls.
Evidently, that was not the right way because he did not see any other Celestial souls floating around or read about them back in his previous life.
"That turned me into a soul but…the attack that destroyed my shell had almost depleted most of my energy as well, forcing whatever was left of my soul to remain in slumber for who knows how long. My soul, until recently, was tethered to my dead body, along with a crystal of Cosmic power which was supposed to provide enough power for me but as you can see all around you, it had unintended side effects,"
Yup, he could see the areas affected. Come to think of it, he could also see a rock, which was oddly shaped, where the trees were the largest and the densest.
"So…life emerged?"
The blob of light bobbed up and down as if nodding, "Yes. Well, it didn't happen on its own. I woke up, and was hungry but I couldn't do anything with the Cosmic energy. So, I forced the energy into the lifeforms I found and forced them to evolve, and then I consumed their souls to power myself long enough for me to learn how to survive in the Astral Realm, where there was an overabundance of Astral energy,"
Those words did not fill him with confidence, as he held the Power Stone tighter, his barriers ready to explode and push him out of this cave and straight into the stratosphere. The last sentence felt like a clarification and that did not feel him with assurance.
"So, how did you learn?" He interrupted the tirade of the crazy but also lonely celestial.
"What? Oh, that. Through them," the blob nudged forward in one direction and he carefully shifted his gaze from the soul and to the…oh.
They were like crocodiles, small-ish size ones that were roaming on the ground, right next to the Celestial's arms.
"What are they?"
"They are an amphibian species that took the most cosmic energy to create because I wanted something that could traverse the freezing waters, retain information about where it was going, the route, distance, everything, and then come back so that its soul could be harvested for information,"
That….was a whole lot of other information. But before he could voice out his question of which there were plenty, the soul spoke over him.
"You see, I am trapped in this place, to this corpse. Arishem's doings meant that I couldn't leave the body alone. Over the years, I have learned to manipulate this space quite well because the cosmic energy is seeped into each and every corner of it. I can transport this entire thing but I have never left the ice for multiple reasons. So, in a bid to learn more, I send in those creatures, who eat other creatures whose soul memory is stored, then they come back to teach me a lot,"
Oh. That's how.
He sighed. This was all a lot. He came here to sort of relax before the big coronation ceremony and try to resolve an idle curiosity of his. Also, he wanted to see and feel what a Celestial Corpse felt like. This thing would probably sell for billions of units, easily. Especially since it was mostly intact.
"Oh?" he leaned back, the Power Stone pulsing in his hand, which the soul seemed to be blind to, as the soul was now right in his face for some reason.
"I sense something in you. Yes, somehow, you feel like you have some Celestial fluid in you," That single sentence made a chill run down his spine. A bad feeling emerged in his heart as he immediately made the Power Stone's energy flare and jump back at top speed, straight through the ice that had formed.
All of this happened in a second as he was forced to use the Power Stone's energy to move through the ice at his max speed, afraid for his life. Within seconds, he was up in the air and still, the dread in his heart was not reduced.
He promptly stored the Power Stone, flew straight up and flew right into a portal, and nearly slammed right into the road in Kathmandu. Specifically, the road that led to the portly door that was kept in Kathmandu as an access point to Kamar Taj, which was not a strictly fixed physical location.
He expertly ignored the looks he was getting from the locals and cleared his throat, the barriers disappearing as he smoothly walked straight onwards the lane that housed the door.
He had to consult the Ancient One about the dangerous soul that lived in the Arctic and how it gave him a very creepy feeling when the soul sensed the minute traces of Celestial Cerebral fluid in his body that was once used by Tivan to rebuild his body.
Reaching the door, he expertly dodged the hands of multiple pickpockets, despite his pockets being completely empty, he tried to open it, only for the authentication spell to not work on him, denying him access to Kamar Taj.
He took a step back, activated his barrier, his signature magical footprint, and placed it on the door, hoping that the wards would recognise him but nothing. No spell, no sign of magic at all.
He was not getting any feedback from the door. It was as if the door was not connected to the ward scheme of Kamar Taj.
His brows furrowed as he felt the door malfunction before…
In almost slow motion, he watched as the door exploded. Not with some magical spell but due to some normal explosives planted behind the door.
His face twisted in confusion and then shock as he turned around and left the lane before even the first splinter of the old wooden door had reached his second skin barrier.
One moment he was standing in front of the door, the next he was flying through a portal after making sure that the damage would not kill anybody.
After all, he was sure that Kaecilius would not care for any collateral damage in his quest to revive his family and gain Eternal life with them.
Word Count - 2376
If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .
I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.