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Mephisto was a liar by nature.
If he spoke ten words, you could safely assume nine of them were lies.
But this time.
Meeting Hawk's gaze, Mephisto pounded his chest and swore on everything unholy that he was being absolutely serious.
Admittedly.
He valued the living planets under his dominion.
After all, souls were the currency of the afterlife. They determined the strength of a Death Dimension and, by extension, the power of a Death Lord.
But...
Hawk was offering him the jackpot.
Who cares about one measly living planet? With the Heaven Dimension under his belt, he could raid the entire multiverse for an endless supply of planets.
And out there, he wouldn't have to deal with the ridiculous number of gods clogging up the primary universe.
Mephisto's eyes burned with greed at the thought.
He immediately ordered his demonic horde to scour the remnants of the Heaven Dimension, planning to absorb and refine the realm as soon as his little chat with his 'good brother' was over. With a fawning, oily smile plastered across his demonic face, he bowed low, gesturing for Hawk to follow him back to the tavern in Hell.
Hawk looked at the sickeningly sweet smile on Mephisto's face, opened his mouth, then decided silence was the best response. He followed the demon back into the tavern.
"My good brother!"
"..."
Hawk stared at the drink Mephisto was offering him with both hands, ignoring the ridiculous title, and got straight to the point.
He'd been gone for a while. Gwen was probably starting to worry.
So...
Get the answers, get back to Earth. His sister was still waiting to be cloned and resurrected.
Mephisto dropped the act. He poured himself a drink, clinked glasses with Hawk to celebrate their victory, took a sip, and then explained exactly why Hawk had felt such overwhelming malice radiating from Time itself.
"It's because your timeline is now independent of the primary multiverse's timeline."
"..."
Hawk's brow furrowed.
When he'd collapsed his timeline, it had, theoretically, become completely self-contained.
Simply put:
'I swallow the golden core, and my fate is mine alone, not Heaven's.'
His act of collapsing his timeline was essentially the cosmic equivalent of that concept.
But...
His timeline still existed.
Mephisto shook his head.
"But for how long?"
"..."
Hawk frowned.
Mephisto chuckled. "Don't look at me like that. Now that your state of existence has ascended to the level of a God, I truly bear you no ill will. I'm a Dimensional God, but a Dimensional God isn't a True God. I'm not an idiot."
Hawk took a sip of his drink.
"So..."
"If I had to guess, there's a very, very long stretch of nothingness in your future timeline, isn't there?"
"...Yes."
Hawk had noticed it when he was reeling in his timeline.
He had assumed it simply meant he was going to successfully manifest the Phoenix Universe in the future.
And naturally, the Time of the primary Marvel Multiverse would have no jurisdiction over him, the Chief God of the Phoenix Universe.
Mephisto spread his hands.
"And that is exactly why you feel the malice of Time."
"Someone doesn't want another God to transcend Time."
"...Time?"
Hawk raised an eyebrow, the word slipping out before his mind made the connection. He looked at Mephisto. "Eternity?"
It was a known fact.
Time itself had no consciousness.
But Eternity, the abstract physical manifestation of all timelines within the primary multiverse, was very much sentient.
And with sentience came personal motives.
So...
When Hawk uttered the name 'Eternity,' Mephisto just smiled and took another sip of his drink, saying nothing.
He could throw Eternity's name around under normal circumstances.
But right now? It was best to keep his mouth shut.
Hawk's timeline might be collapsed and hidden, but Mephisto's wasn't. If Eternity happened to be eavesdropping on this particular temporal frequency, Mephisto would be screwed.
Hawk watched Mephisto's reaction, his mind working quickly.
"You said 'another' God? Who did it before?"
"Zeus!"
That, Mephisto could talk about.
"As the Lord of the Olympian Universe, Zeus transcended Time."
"Like you, he was unmoved by the unknown future. To prevent his transcendence, Time had to use other vessels, trying to tempt Zeus by showing him his future demise, desperately trying to force him to look."
"The most famous attempt is the myth known on Earth—the prophecy that Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, would overthrow Zeus's rule."
"But that was just a prophecy from Time. And a prophecy is not a fixed past."
"So..."
"In the end, Zeus transcended."
Mephisto set his glass down, looking at Hawk with a grin. "And that's why the Celestials are only fit to be bouncers in Zeus's realm. But as a trade-off, Zeus agreed to stop meddling in the affairs of the primary multiverse. So now, he basically keeps his doors locked and minds his own business."
Hawk blinked, suddenly remembering his conversation with Poseidon in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
"Uh..."
"What?"
"I ran into Poseidon in the Atlantic a while back..."
Hawk recounted his encounter with the Sea God. "Poseidon told me Zeus made a deal with the Celestials."
Mephisto shrugged.
"That's right. But Poseidon is just a subordinate god."
"And you know what Zeus's sense of humor is like."
"His favorite pastime is watching his brothers—Poseidon, whom he banished to the oceans, and Hades, whom he banished to the Underworld—seethe with rage because they want to overthrow him but know they can't."
"..."
Hawk was silent.
He wanted to argue, but considering the well-documented depravity and twisted humor of Zeus in Earth's mythology, Mephisto's explanation actually made the most sense.
After all, you couldn't exactly expect a guy who turned himself into a swan to seduce women to operate on normal logic.
"So, Time will keep trying everything it can to tempt me into looking at my future, to stop me from transcending?"
"Absolutely."
Mephisto nodded without hesitation, then looked at Hawk. "But as long as you refuse to look, you're fine. Besides, you've already collapsed your timeline. Time can't even pinpoint your exact location anymore, let alone the Celestials."
Hawk nodded slowly.
The next second.
A thought struck him. He snapped to attention, his gaze locking onto Mephisto with piercing intensity.
Eternity and the Celestials might not be able to find him.
But what if they had a mole?
Like...
A certain Death Lord standing right in front of him, known for having absolutely no moral bottom line?
Meeting Hawk's icy stare, Mephisto froze for a moment. Then, realizing what Hawk was thinking, his face darkened. He immediately raised a hand. "I swear on Death herself, I will never repeat a word of this conversation to a third party."
Hearing the oath, the murderous glint in Hawk's eyes softened.
Mephisto sighed in exasperation. "My good brother, if I was going to rat you out, I wouldn't have told you all this in the first place, would I?"
Hawk raised an eyebrow.
Fair point.
But...
He respected the weight of an oath sworn on Death. What he didn't respect, or believe in, was Mephisto's unprompted goodwill.
Especially since this was the second time he was offering it.
So!
"What do you want?"
"Heh."
Mephisto rubbed his hands together like a scheming fly, dropping all pretense. "When my brother succeeds, I just hope you'll remember your little brother and pull him up. Hades might look down on the title of King of the Underworld, but I don't. I promise, I'll run your afterlife with absolute efficiency."
In a word:
A Dimensional God might be called a 'God,' but they weren't true divinities. Even Mephisto's authority over life and death was merely on loan from the entity Death.
So...
He really wanted a promotion!
Hearing this, Hawk couldn't help but laugh out loud.
That was the Mephisto he knew.
If the demon had spouted some nonsense about serving his 'good brother' without expecting anything in return, Hawk would have drawn his blade and chopped him to pieces without a second thought.
He'd already killed one 'God' today. Adding a Death Lord to the tally wouldn't make much difference.
But this...
"Alright."
"But be patient."
Hawk looked at Mephisto, whose face practically screamed, 'Brother, I want to move up in the world!' He smiled. "If you're not afraid of Death coming after you, I can certainly afford to make you the King of my Underworld."
Mephisto's eyes widened with manic glee.
"You mean it, brother?"
"I don't make promises lightly. As long as you don't betray me, when the time comes, I won't hoard the glory."
Hawk kept his smile. "I need you to do two things for me. Do them well, and the throne of the Underworld is yours."
Mephisto's expression turned deadly serious.
"Name them, brother!"
"I don't really like the dark."
"Understood!"
Mephisto processed the cryptic statement for a split second, then nodded vigorously. A thought occurred to him, and he looked at Hawk. "Brother, about the life and death authority over the Western Hemisphere..."
With a thought, Hawk relinquished his hold on the Western Hemisphere, returning its spiritual jurisdiction to Mephisto, save for the souls of those he personally killed or those who invoked his name.
Reclaiming his authority, Mephisto's expression was grave.
"Rest assured, brother. From this moment on, no new darkness shall be born!"
"Excellent."
Hawk's smile grew radiant. "And I don't really like ghosts, either."
Mephisto blinked.
He paused for just a second or two longer than the first time.
Then.
He nodded again, heavily. "I understand, brother. Just watch."
Hawk grunted his approval. He downed the rest of his drink, stood up, and headed for the door.
"I'm leaving."
"Safe travels, brother!"
Mephisto, now treating the title 'brother' as gospel, eagerly escorted Hawk to the boundary of the Hell Dimension. He stood in the void of space, waving as Hawk transformed into a golden streak of light and shot toward Earth.
BOOM!
0.01 seconds after breaking through the atmosphere, Hawk materialized in the sky above a certain sovereign city-state enclave within Italy.
The next second.
Without a moment's hesitation, he pointed his right index finger downward.
Lightning Plasma!
And then—
He turned away, leaving his work to speak for itself.
He vanished.
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