Ross quickly managed to track down Ajak's location.
She hadn't used a fake name, and she even had a valid credit card under her real identity, so it didn't take long to gather all the information.
Ross sent a photo to Rory. After confirming it was indeed her, Rory was immediately assigned a military aircraft headed straight for South Dakota.
On a remote farm in South Dakota, Ajak lived alone for miles in any direction. She had been here for many years, tending to the land and occasionally reporting Earth's status to Arishem, the Celestial with six eyes.
After Thanos snapped half the universe out of existence, Earth's Celestial seed, Tiamut, had its emergence delayed. But to Ajak's surprise, the Avengers brought everyone back, pushing the emergence forward once again.
With Tiamut's awakening drawing near, Ajak grew increasingly uneasy.
That night, she lit the fireplace and was just about to contact Arishem when a sudden knock came at the door.
She blinked in surprise, she couldn't remember the last time someone had come to visit.
Opening the door, she saw a stranger she didn't recognize. With a polite smile, she asked, "Hello. Can I help you?"
"Are you Ms. Ajak?" The man at the door was Rory.
Ajak nodded, her expression wary as she studied him.
Rory offered a calm smile. "My name is Rory. I have some things I'd like to ask you, if it's alright, could we talk inside?"
Ajak gave a small nod and invited him in. She poured him a cup of coffee from the kitchen and then joined him by the fire.
The warm glow of the flames lit up the side of her face. She pulled a blanket over her lap and asked casually, "Are you new to the area?"
"No, I came from New York."
Her face changed. She had assumed Rory was a local, but he had come all the way from New York just to find her.
She rarely interacted with humans, and certainly had no friends in New York. She cut straight to the point.
"You came here specifically to see me? We don't even know each other."
Rory kept smiling. "I'm here for one reason, to learn about the Eternals and how to use cosmic energy."
The moment he said the word "Eternals," Ajak's eyes turned sharp with suspicion.
Rory added, "There's no need to be tense. The history of the Eternals is well-documented, and you all haven't exactly been subtle. It wasn't hard to trace the clues."
Coldly, Ajak replied, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. If you don't have anything else, I'd like you to leave."
After the Deviants were dealt with, the Eternals had agreed not to interfere with human society. She certainly wasn't about to share any secrets with a stranger.
But Rory hadn't traveled this far just to be turned away with a few words.
Remaining seated, he smiled and said calmly, "Until I get what I came for, no one's going to make me leave."
"What are you planning to do?"
Though Ajak was the leader of the ten Eternals, her ability was healing, making her the weakest among them in combat.
In fact, she couldn't even beat some ordinary human superpowers.
Under her blanket, Ajak subtly reached for her phone and dialed a number, but the screen said "No Signal." She tried again, several times, but couldn't get through.
Without even looking at her, Rory stared into the fireplace and said calmly, "Don't bother. I brought a signal jammer. No electronic signal's getting out."
"Who are you really? What do you want?"
Seeing that her call wouldn't go through, Ajak tossed the phone aside.
Rory stopped beating around the bush. "I just want to know how to use cosmic energy. I can feel it flowing inside me, but I can't control it. Just teach me how, and I'll leave."
Ajak looked at him like he was speaking nonsense and firmly shook her head. "Impossible. Cosmic energy is a gift from the Celestials to the Eternals. Humans can't control it, actually, they shouldn't even be able to feel it."
At the dawn of the universe, six Infinity Stones were born, representing the most primal forces of the cosmos.
The Celestials existed even before the universe itself. They learned to harness the energy that formed afterward, to create galaxies, stars, life, and use life to gestate new Celestials.
Only life forms genetically modified by the Celestials could use cosmic energy. That's because cosmic energy and life energy cannot coexist within the same being. If they do, no new Celestial can be born.
That's the rule of Celestial energy exchange.
Rory shook his head. "To be exact, I'm not human anymore. Like you, most of my body now carries Eternal genes. That's why I came all this way to find you."
"You're an Eternal?" Ajak was stunned.
She reached over and took Rory's hand, sending a pulse of energy from her body into his.
The reading shocked her.
"You mean… you used to be human, and then became an Eternal?"
"Exactly. So, will you teach me how to use this energy?"
Even Rory wasn't sure what he really was anymore. He had started as an ordinary human. Then, by rewriting his genetic code with serum made from Titan Eternal DNA, he had replaced his human genes.
Later, he had injected Celestial genes into his bone marrow, which produced cosmic energy inside him.
So now his body contained a combination of human DNA, Titan Eternal DNA, and modified Celestial DNA, resulting in the being he was today.
Though Ajak lacked specialized equipment and couldn't analyze his DNA sequence, she could feel the cosmic energy within him, and that was enough to convince her he was indeed one of them.
After taking a moment to recover from the shock, she asked, "Can you tell me how you, "
"Thanos. I used his blood to create a serum and enhance myself."
Ajak nodded slowly, unsurprised. "That explains it."
Once everything was out in the open, Ajak began teaching Rory how to use cosmic energy.
"Your body is the vessel," she said. "Cosmic energy is like a program, you need to write your own code to unlock different abilities."
"Write code? How?"
Ajak smiled. "You have to feel it. Focus inward. Sense how the energy flows. Then guide it, shape it, to match your will."
Rory's first instinct was to try flying.
With his current physical strength, if he could add flight to the mix, he'd be practically unstoppable.
Among the heroes known to fly: Captain Marvel flies by propelling energy, Thor uses his Stormbreaker axe, and Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange rely on dimensional magic.
None of their flight methods aligned with the rules of cosmic energy Ajak had described.
Rory closed his eyes and focused on sensing the flow of cosmic energy.
Once he concentrated, the energy immediately responded, appearing in his bloodstream, circulating through his entire body. But it refused to obey.
What Rory didn't realize was that his entire body had begun to emit a faint golden glow.
A few moments later, the golden light started to gather at his palms, forming two glowing orbs.
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200 P.S = 1 Extra Chapter
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