Chapter 19: You're S.H.I.E.L.D., Don't Play Dumb
Du Wa looked at the innocent-faced Coulson and felt the man had no sincerity whatsoever.
"Coulson, while we may not be friends, I'd at least hope you wouldn't try to fool me with such clumsy lies."
Du Wa gazed at Coulson with a strange look. "You're S.H.I.E.L.D. An ancient organization whose operations have directly impacted human history, not some group founded last century as the rumors claim... So, do you really need me to spell it out for you?"
Du Wa had been gathering information about this world. If Mutants didn't exist, things would be simple. But with Mutants in the picture, the matter involving the Eternals and the Deviants became far more troublesome.
Across the Multiverse, the origin of Mutants was the same in the vast majority of cases: the Deviants.
Therefore, unless this was one of those extremely rare exceptions, Du Wa had reason to believe that the Mutants of his Universe also originated from that long-extinct group of Deviants.
The Celestials conducted experiments on many life-bearing planets, simultaneously creating two opposing factions: the Eternals and the Deviants. They would pass judgment every so often. Factions that passed the judgment were allowed to live; those that failed were exterminated.
A classic example was the Skrulls. As another branch of Deviants, they eliminated the Eternals on their planet and passed the Celestials' review, thus becoming one of the three great interstellar empires that hold sway over the galaxy today.
But then the Skrulls got arrogant. They, along with their Skrull Gods, decided to do to the Kree what the Celestials had done to them. The plan backfired spectacularly. The Kree used the Skrulls' power to rise at an astonishing rate, becoming their most formidable enemies.
It was the same for the Eternals and Deviants on Earth, also created by the Celestials.
Before Ikaris and his band of Eternals, there was an even older batch of Eternals and Deviants who dominated the Earth even earlier than Humanity, having established a powerful civilization twenty thousand years ago that directly influenced Earth's history!
Many years ago, when humans were still primitive, the Celestials had already chosen Earth as a grand experimental site. They created the Eternals with their perfect genes—the ancestors of Thanos—and the Deviants with their infinitely mutating genes—who could be loosely considered the ancestors of Mutants.
Twenty thousand years ago, Earth was an era ruled by the Eternals and Deviants. Back then, the Deviants were sentient beings who could develop technology, build cities, and create interstellar battleships. They were nothing like the "Deviants" that Ikaris and the other eleven Eternals fought, which were more like large wild dogs.
The two races went to war for supremacy over Earth.
The outcome was strikingly similar to that of the Skrulls—the Deviants, with their infinitely mutating genes, were victorious.
The Eternals with their perfect genes were defeated. They fled Earth as a race and migrated to Titan. During their migration, they were tragically attacked by the Kree Empire, one of the three great galactic empires. A large number of their people were put on dissection tables by the Kree for live experiments, which in turn gave birth to another branch of humanity—the Inhumans, who now reside on the Moon, led by the Skyfather-level powerhouse Black Bolt.
The Deviants won a pyrrhic victory. But before they could truly enjoy the fruits of their victory, they were judged by the Celestials as a failed product and were exterminated.
Although the Deviants went extinct, their mutant genes luckily survived, passed down through the pathetically weak humans of that time. After generations of reproduction, they became the Mutants.
This was a major event that occurred twenty thousand years ago and changed the entire course of Earth's history. Without this major event, there would be no Mutants today. Conversely, the existence of Mutants means that a race of Deviants with infinitely mutating genes must have once existed on this world and had since gone extinct.
As for the chain reaction that followed, such as the power vacuum on Earth left by the demise of the two races, which gave the Great Demon of Hell, Zatanna, an opportunity to invade Earth; in order to fight the Demon, a large number of Spirits of Vengeance descended from the sky in a rain of fire, one of which, many years later, would combine with a certain motorcycle rider to become Ghost Rider…
Major events like the emergence of the Mutant Apocalypse, the united stand of the Gods of the World Tree against a squadron of Celestials a thousand years ago, Zhang Heng of the Eastern Han Dynasty having a Celestial give birth, Da Vinci forging a sun-armor to charge into the Sun and expel an Infant Celestial, and the schism between S.P.E.A.R. and S.H.I.E.L.D., can all be traced back to the conflict between the Eternals and the Deviants at their source.
Oh, and Thanos's massacre on Titan, which nearly wiped out this group of Eternals that originated from Earth, was another consequence.
Therefore, when Du Wa learned of the existence of Mutants on this Universe's Earth, he was already mentally prepared and had been continuously gathering all sorts of data, searching for traces hidden in the corners of history.
And S.H.I.E.L.D., a global supernatural organization that was one of the two major branches of the "Brotherhood of the Shield" established by figures like Zhang Heng, dating all the way back to the Eastern Han Dynasty—how could it possibly know nothing about the Deviants?
Alright, even if S.H.I.E.L.D. was unaware of the original Deviants who were wiped out by the Celestials twenty thousand years ago, when humanity was just a lackey to both the Eternals and the Deviants, could they also be unaware of the low-level, dog-like Deviants deployed to Earth over the past few thousand years by the Celestial named Arishem?
These eleven Eternals, as the newly created puppets, were repeatedly memory-wiped and reused by Arishem as weapons against the low-level Deviants, constantly killing various Deviants. Could it be that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't detect any of it, that not a single record was left behind?
You've got to be kidding me.
At this, Coulson's expression changed completely.
"This isn't right," Coulson said, frowning as he stared into Du Wa's eyes. "I don't understand. We've checked all the files and confirmed that you are indeed a rather intelligent Scientist, but there's no way you could have come into contact with information of this level!"
"Why is that?"
"Because of your platform. You've never had the right kind of access. There's no reason you could have obtained these things that are buried in history."
"Well then, Coulson, is it possible that what you found out about me is merely what I wanted you to see?" Du Wa said with a half-smile.
Coulson fell silent. He still firmly believed Du Wa was spouting nonsense, yet this created a logical conflict with the fact that Du Wa possessed this secret information.
After a moment, Coulson concluded that he wouldn't be able to dig up Du Wa's own secrets from him, so he shifted his line of questioning to the Deviants. "If I'm not mistaken, Ikaris isn't one of those giant, reptilian Deviants?"
"If you're talking about the Deviants that have appeared over the last few thousand years, then no, they are not the same thing," Du Wa replied, his answer seemingly cryptic.
But Coulson understood in an instant, and immense shock flooded his eyes.
This was outrageous. Du Wa actually knew about that group of Deviants who had briefly dominated the Earth? That was something from twenty thousand years ago! Even S.H.I.E.L.D., with its long and storied history, knew little about that period!
"I will report our conversation verbatim. So, this is one of the sources of your confidence. I just don't know if you have a stable source of intelligence, or if you have personally experienced many of the major events in human history?"
Coulson had become thoroughly interested in Du Wa. He decided that when he returned, he would scour S.H.I.E.L.D.'s archives, searching the historical records for any trace of Du Wa.
Yes, he suspected Du Wa was some historical figure who possessed an extraordinarily long lifespan and had managed to live all the way into modern society.
This wasn't unheard of. For example, the demon-type Mutant, Nightcrawler, who Magneto values, is an old fellow who has lived for five or six thousand years, having survived from the era of Apocalypse all the way to the present day.
Du Wa shrugged and made a "go ahead" gesture.
Coulson chose his words carefully. "Since Ikaris is not a Deviant, that's the best possible outcome. Otherwise, things would get troublesome. You know what I'm talking about, right? The true Deviants of the ancient era are extinct. The other batch of Deviants that have appeared these last few thousand years—let's tentatively call these reptilian creatures 'Deviants' as well. This is very good."
Du Wa nodded in understanding. If Ikaris was truly one of the original, sentient Deviant beings with infinitely mutating genes from twenty thousand years ago, the problem would be enormous.
After all, there was still a group of dangerous Mutants on Earth. They too would be investigating their own origins to prove that Mutants are more noble than humans, and they might have already found some clues.
(end of chapter)