Chapter 56 - My SI Stash #56 - Godhood: For Dummies by intata (Avengers) (2/2)

”Get me instructions for the puzzle.”

A hologram of the orb shot up over the little pyramid. ”Step-by-step instructions displayed. Rotate right side by thirty-seven-point-two degrees.”

”Okay, this might take a while.” Nathan said with a sigh.

It did take a while.

Six hours later, he was mentally exhausted, and on the last step of the puzzle. He didn't complete it yet, though. He set the puzzle down, wanting to take a nap first, and not wanting to expose the contents until he was a sufficient distance from his ship. He was too exhausted to deal with the volatile item that the orb housed. So instead, he stood and looked out the window, finding that it was deep into the night cycle of the planet, he hopped back towards the small living quarters and slept until the dual suns rose in the morning.

When he woke, Nathan hopped out of bed, took a quick shower, grabbed the orb, and went outside. As he stepped off the ship, he took a moment to just glance around, to really get a good look at his surroundings. The Island he was on couldn't have been larger than a square mile. The far side of the island had a rocky outcropping that came to a small cliff overlooking the vast oceanic planet. Directly left of that was a rocky shore covered in moss that lead in towards some low-to-the-ground vegetation. To the right of the cliff, and stretching back towards where he landed his ship, was a flat, sandy beach that stretched a couple hundred meters out.

Nodding to himself, he made his way over towards the cliff, but stopped before he left the beach. After he made sure he was at least a hundred meters from his ship, he took the orb and breathed in; slowly, worriedly, turning the last bit.

The two halves of the orb came free, somehow still in line with each other and supporting the object he knew to be inside: the Power Stone. An Infinity Stone. Something he hoped wouldn't kill him in the next five minutes.

Carefully, he placed the suspended orb halves on a rock about waist-high, so that he would be able to reach the stone without having to support the orb as well. There he paused, taking a few deep breaths, trying to psych himself up for what he was about to do.

He grinned to himself as he thought, 'I need an Ego boost. Ha! It's funny because my dad's name is 'Ego''

Pausing at the joke, he g_r_o_a_n_e_d. ”I haven't seen Peter in a week, and already I'm making shit jokes to replace him. Gah! I'm pathetic.”

He jumped up and down a couple times. His name was Nathan Quill. Abducted from his mother's deathbed at the age of eight along with his twin brother Peter. Fraternal twin. Nathan was much more handsome, thank you. With his chiseled jawline, and flowing locks of auburn hair, he was more god than man. He was sure of it; he was half human, half Celestial, after all.

It wasn't as if he was going into this blind, either. Ever since he realized he was in the Marvel universe, and that he was Peter's brother, he had been trying to access his Celestial side of the gene pool. After years of meditation and concentration, he finally managed to pull some of that blue energy from the center of his being. It was just a spark, though, and it knocked him out cold for the rest of the day. That was about three years ago, and since then he had practiced pulling more and more every night. However that was as far as he had ever gotten; limited to just pulling a minuscule amount of pure energy. He never had enough to use for anything, as in he could never pull enough, for long enough, to practice with. But that wasn't the point. The point was that he had that power in the first place! It meant that he was truly the son of a Celestial, a being that could easily hold and use the Infinity Stones.

'Alright, confidence meter is overflowing, let's do this!'

Nathan took one last deep breath, reached forward, and wrapped his fist around the glowing purple gem.

Pain.

Immediately, a pain like none-other cascaded through every cell in his body. The Sixteen-year-old screamed, the agony too intense to realize that he could just drop it. He could feel his mortal flesh crackling with purple energy from the pure power coursing through him. His mind seemed to regress as well, only capable of single thought as long as the pain ruptured though his being.

And then something inside of him pushed back. He couldn't understand what that something was, or why it was familiar; not that he was trying to understand it in the first place. He just clung to it. A light in the darkness to beat the pain away. A blue light in the darkness…

He noticed slowly, that the more he clung to the light, the more of the Stone's power seemed to be funneled into it, fanning the flames and making the Stone's direct influence lighter. So he funneled more and more power into the blue light, until finally the pain began to subside. It was still there, but not nearly as profound, allowing for the return of his mental faculties.

At which point he realized he was on f_u_c_k_i_n_g fire!

Blue, Celestial fire, and it didn't burn, so it was OK. But still. That's scary.

Nathan continued to pour the power of the stone into his core, fanning the blue flames, but then he realized just how much larger those flames were than usual.

Several hundred times larger than he was used to.

He dropped the stone from his hand, allowing it to tumble into the sand below, and promptly collapsed to his knees. He took a deep breath in, and let it out slowly, darkness taking over his vision. All-in-all, that couldn't have lasted more than two minutes, but he was pretty sure he had been screaming that whole time. And now his throat felt raw, and he was tired. Too tired to move properly, and the world was getting blurry.

He was out before his head hit the sand.

When he woke up, he was laying face-down on the beach, Power Stone just inches from his nose.

Nathan scrambled up and backed away from the stone, nearly hyperventilating just from remembering the pain, but then as more memories came back to the forefront, he forced himself to calm down. He knew it wouldn't be pleasant from the get-go. Hell, he was half expecting to just poof out of existence as soon as he touched it, so he couldn't really say that it didn't go well.

Taking another couple deep breaths, he sat down to meditate through the experience, and almost immediately noticed a change within himself: what had previously been a small candle of Celestial blue energy within his gut, was now a raging bonfire. The Infinity Stone had somehow jump-started his energy reserves, and he was left gaping like a fish at the result.

He tried moving the energy; like he had before, and was surprised at the ease that it came to him. He guided the energy through his arms and spread it across the skin of his hands, making them glow a soft blue with little to no strain, as opposed to what would have taken thirty minutes of concentration, and total exhaustion just the day before.

Well, he supposed it had only been a short time since he had passed out, it looked to be about noon-ish, which meant according to the night-day cycle of the planet, he had only been out for a couple hours.

While moving the energy, he quickly noticed something else: his senses seemed to expand into whatever the blue energy touched, meaning he could feel and understand the structure of his hands as if he was looking through an MRI scan. He wasn't seeing, really, as this was more of a third-eye sort-of deal; seeing through the energy itself. He focused a little more, and realized that he could see deeper; as if he had taken a microscope and zoomed in. He could see the cellular structure of his skin, muscle, and bone… However, he could also see something else.

”Eww! Eww, gross!” He shook his hands frantically, as if he had just stuck his hand in a jar of mystery slime. ”Is that bacteria? Is that what that looks like?! Eugh!”

After a few minutes of rubbing his hands in the sand, trying in vain to wipe the bacteria off, he sighed and came to terms with taking a long, hot shower later. Taking a deep breath, again, he forced his mind to explore with his energy some more. He could already feel a little bit of the strain, but this was the farthest he had ever gotten in his control, and he wasn't about to stop now.

In the effort to not look at the disgusting micro-organisms that clung to his dermis, he picked up a small rock, and began slowly moving his energy into it.

To his third-eye, the rock looked inherently different compared to living matter; an obvious conclusion, but an important one nonetheless. It was solid mass, and in order to see anything of value, he had to 'zoom in' further. Doing so; however, started to completely tank his reserves, which is why he quickly stopped. He still had plenty left in the reservoir, but he realized he would need a lot more in order to do just about anything with his powers. He knew the stories of Celestials, and how they could create entire planets and solar systems out of nothing but their own energy and abilities; how they could create life itself on a whim. However these were old creatures. They had eons to collect energy and get to know their abilities. Or maybe they came into being with all of those abilities set and ready to go? He had no idea, really.

He knew that after a nap, he would be back at full, or he could meditate in the sunlight if he wanted to be quick about it. Years ago, when he first began tapping into his Celestial side, he realized that in order to grow his reserves, he had to take in ambient energy; be that the heat and light radiation from a star, or he supposed, now looking at the shining gem on the ground, more esoteric sources.

He sighed, hoping that what he was about to do didn't suck as much as the first time.

He looked to his hand, flooding it with his inner blue fire; considering that was the only thing that kept him from exploding the last time around, and bent down to pick up the purple gem.

As soon as he touched it, the power started to seep into his system, though much more slowly and controlled this time. Nathan closed his eyes and concentrated on bringing his power to act as a sort-of filter between him and the stone, focusing purely on the energy that radiated from it. Learning to actually control the stone and use its powers had now come secondary to using his own, since he was apparently given the option to improve quickly. Sure, it was easily one of the few things in the universe that would make him a power to contend with, but he wasn't sure if other beings could detect its use; beings that could easily overpower him if he had just one of the stones. It had been a small worry before, and still was rather small, but now that he had another option, he would explore that first. Not to mention that he wanted to become one of those powers without the constant help of an Infinity Stone. He liked to think of himself as a good guy, but… well, as the saying goes, 'Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.'

Being born the son of a Celestial did not do him any favors in this field.

Nathan stayed like that for a couple hours: constantly absorbing the energy that radiated from the stone, filtering it through his own Celestial fire, and feeding his core, only finally taking a break to sleep and eat. Speaking of eating, he had about a year's worth of dehydrated rations aboard his ship, being one of the main cargo points of the exploratory vessel so that it could survey the remote areas of the galaxy without frequent trips home. The other being fuel in the form of Hyperspace Ion Batteries. These batteries tend to require about two months to recharge, but can last up to three years of moderate use. This charging cycle was, in fact, why Nathan had so much time to plan out how he was going to steal the ship in the first place.

But back to the food: it s_u_c_k_e_d. It was bland and chalky, but it got the job done. He highly doubted that he would be on the planet for a year, but he had the stock for it if need be. Nathan really couldn't wait to eat something more appetizing, and it had only been a week since he arrived.

So there he stayed, on the mostly deserted planet, for what ended up being three months. He had set up three stages of his day during that time; the first stage was to absorb energy from the Power Stone and use it to enhance his own reserves slowly. The second was to use those reserves and explore his own power, and the third was sleep. Of course he took breaks to eat as well.

During those three months, he found out four main things about his body and abilities: the first being how to move his energy to manipulate the matter it was connected to, essentially making Nathan a telekinetic. This also allowed him to change the state of matter just by exciting, or calming the molecules that were flooded with his energy. The second was how to mold his energy in its purest form to create matter. This one, though, took entirely too much energy to feasibly work with at his level; meaning that the few times he tried, he was only able to make a small pebble after dumping his entire, now comparatively massive, reserves into the effort. The third thing he learned came off of a combination of the previous two; he could, in essence, alter matter that already existed, changing the organization of the atoms and molecules within to fit his design. This took a lot less energy than pure creation, but it came with the caveat of time. As in it took almost an entire day to change a rock the size of his fist into the same metal that coated his spaceship. Though he assumed it would get faster with practice.

That brought him to the fourth thing he had discovered. After three months, his reserves had skyrocketed from being in contact with an Infinity Stone, and he couldn't be happier with the results he had gotten. However there was an inherent issue that he hadn't foreseen: his reserves stopped growing. Or more accurately, he had filled every cell and atom of his body to the brim with his Celestial energy, and he couldn't fit any more into his being. He had figured out early into the first month that there was no extra-dimensional pool of energy that he was drawing from, no; the energy was being directly stored in his body; as in each atom that made up his body could hold a certain amount, and no more. Further, he also learned that he could feasibly store his energy into nearby objects as well, but it would fizzle out over a time if he turned his focus to something else. The amount of time an object held energy, as well as how much energy it could hold, seemed dependent on its atomic structure. For instance, the rocks around the small island he was on were mostly volcanic granite, which were absolute shit at holding energy for more than two minutes, but a hunk the size of his fist could hold more energy than he had in his body. The metal hull of his ship, though, could hold energy for roughly two hours, and he could fill the entire hull with it to the brim, and still have half of his reserves left. That ratio still s_u_c_k_e_d, but it proved that different materials reacted differently to Celestial energy. Maybe there was some material out there that could hold a metric shit-ton of energy, and keep it for an extended period. Something to note and look for.

There was now very little he could do with his time here, seeing that he couldn't grow his reserves more. He supposed he could hunker down and actually try using the Power Stone, try to get better with using its abilities, however he was still a bit afraid to openly control the four fundamental forces of the universe. Some cosmic entity being able to detect that was a real possibility. For the past three months, he had only ever used the energy radiating from the stone, never once actually using the stone itself.

He sighed, looking down at the purple gem, now held easily in his palm. He was still afraid of being hunted for it, as he wasn't nearly strong enough to protect it, and didn't trust the Power Stone alone to be able to protect him if those that wanted it came for him. He could still be killed in his sleep, after all. Using the stone had been his original plan in going to Morag, but with the Power Stone's ambient energy, he received an alternative, safer option to fill out his own powers instead.

So no; he wouldn't be learning to control the stone. Not yet, anyway. He closed his fist around it and looked to his ship with a grin.

”Time to blow this joint. Next stop: Earth.”

A/N

Well, that's a thing. I want to make Nathan awesome, but not overpowered. I realize that he now has a fricken Infinity Stone, a Celestial heritage, and loose knowledge of the future, so that idea just f_u_c_k_e_d itself out a window, but there's plenty of other characters that could give him a run for his money. Hopefully this will still be entertaining for you all.

To answer the question of, ”Well what about when Ego wanted to draw energy from Peter to power his plan in the movie? Wouldn't Peter already have that energy in him? Not to mention that he obviously had a lot. Meaning Nathan would too, right? Why make him suck power from an Infinity Stone to get stronger?”

So about that… It's a plot hole in the movie that doesn't make sense, considering that Ego says that Peter's powers will go away once he dies. If that was the case, when he was using Peter as a battery, he would have just been drawing on his own reserves like an idiot, since that's what Peter was doing in the training bit. So to make it less confusing, I'm splitting up the energy into two bits: Life Energy, and Celestial Energy. Celestial Energy takes a lot of time and effort (Or an external power source) to build up and use - it's how Celestials use their energy to affect the world. Life energy is something that I will probably never use outside of this explanation… probably. Beings with powerful life-forces have a lot of Life energy, which Ego found a way to utilize in order to complete his plan. Peter, being part Celestial, had a lot of Life energy despite his human anatomy, which Ego planned to use.

There. Hope that answered someone's question.

I don't need a new asshole. The one I have works just fine, so please don't rip me a new one with your crappy insults. However if you have actual constructive criticism, I will gladly accept it. If you don't know the difference, you don't have to say anything at all.

Please review! Even if it's just a word or two, I would like to know what you think.