There was another ripple nearby as another Portal opened, the Champions walking through, while a streak of yellow flashed across the sky, descending on us. The High Guard came down to join us, the Lantern transporting some of the team.

The Wakandans were fewer in number, the new King T’Challa, his personal guards, and some scientists, including his younger sister, coming through their own Portal to join us.

Briggs nodded off the two gods at his sides, and they somewhat reluctantly went over to greet Thor and Hercules. The two brothers might be the heads of the Slavic pantheon, but the Slavic gods didn’t have the oomph that the Greeks or Norse did, and Perrun wasn’t a true Skyfather. That said, this was a cordial meeting, and the four gods greeted one another neutrally, all of them overshadowed by the presence in the sky.

Sama didn’t seem to stand out at all, until you saw the wary respect the most powerful people were giving her. She shook Briggs’ hands, gave Natasha and Peggy warm hugs of greeting, and the powerful and mighty were clearly non-plussed around her as she stood there chatting.

Cassandra was with us, and naturally headed over to greet her adoptive mother, being pulled into a warm embrace like the rest.

Dmitri and Steve Rogers obviously knew one another, and all the Shielders were introducing themselves to those they hadn’t met before. Many of these people hadn’t met before, so some flexing and posing was to be expected. The Crimson Dynamo, Bulwark, and Stark formed an early quick core of armor-users, at least up until Doc Bronze called for the other eggheads to get over there and get everything set up properly, and the world-class geniuses converged to do their things.

I smirked at all the Electro-cable present in these things. I was right in that the market for high-temperature superconductors was literally wide open, and even the ‘nearly perfect’ stuff was in massive demand just for power cables. Every sigma of purity in Lightning Copper was another 10x the power load it could handle without overheating, so even getting almost perfect was worth a lot of money.

Max Dillon could make as much money as he was willing to make. He’d long managed to pay off his gambling debt, and was starting to knuckle down and make some bank for himself. He’d never be able to automate the process without some unseemly tech upgrades, as it was reliant on him, but he had as much guaranteed income as he wanted to earn for himself.

A half-dozen Tribal Shamans of different Totems had arrived in the various parties, roping in Dealer, Doc Strange, the Russian Witches, Wakandan Priests, and all the mystics there. Dealer was introduced around, given odd looks for her strange Card magic with her incredible Caster Level, and then they all started catching up on news.

Powerhouses from all the teams were mingling, everyone protected against the cold by one means or another.

Pointedly, I looked up at the sky once with juiced vision.

All the Skyfathers were present, the senior powers of every Pantheon in attendance up in the sky, Divinely watching this moment. Watching with the Watcher, as it were.

The Pantheons were among the other factors who could make harvesting this world an absolute chore and inefficient selection for the World-Devourer. On the flip side, none of them wanted the Celestials here, either, who also overmatched them.

Over there was Erik Lensherr, the Champion of New Israel, who I’d been told was actually going to be directly involved in the effort, being the person most attuned to the Earth’s biomagnetic field. He was speaking with Primus and Photon like old friends, and had made a point of going over and greeting the Hag personally, getting a kiss to his forehead like a favored son or something.

Von Doom was here, sans the iron mask. He was standing there with his new Widow wife Lady Valeria, arrogant and proud and itching to go over to the sensor station and tell them what to do and how to go about it. He was resisting hard glaring at Reed Richards, pretending to be aloof and above it all as he quietly seethed and doubtless paid rapt attention to his own personal systems that were certainly not trying to hack into the sensor suite there, nopers.

Sama and Briggs had to know that having him here was dangerous, as one of Doom’s big feats had been draining the Power Cosmic from the Surfer in the original books. He would definitely be taking readings here and trying to get his hands on some of the energies that were going to be tossed about, one way or another.

But he’d get exactly one chance, and then Sama and Briggs would put him down forever. There’d be no pussyfooting around, clever escapes, schemes of survival, and returning to threaten the world another day. He’d get his shot, and then they’d kill him.

I didn’t doubt he’d take the shot. His ego couldn’t tolerate being under someone else.

A flash of silver cut across the sky, moving with great speed and disdain for physics. I didn’t have to see it to know the Big Guy was coming, as suddenly the whole biosphere of the planet started to tense up.

The Silver Surfer came streaking down in front of us, even as the moon-sized Worldship of Galactus began to increase in size with great speed. The Herald came to an abrupt stop in front of everyone, looking over the gathered people curiously, and even glancing at the sky, clearly able to see the Skyfathers watching.

I noted he was very careful of Briggs and Sama, probably because he couldn’t tell anything about them, yet their Auras were weighing down on him, and they could strip him of flight in just a second.

“My Master comes. The Celestials are already moving to intercept him. This area will get very dangerous,” he informed everyone in Allspeech. “You may not wish to remain nearby if they come into conflict.”

“We have taken some precautions,” Briggs stated, completely unconcerned with the matter, and Sama nodded. The Surfer looked at him, and then bowed slightly, sensing he was in the presence of someone who was truly dangerous.

“As you will.” He turned and was about to watch what was going on himself when Sama flicked her hand, and a massive Axe appeared in it, definitely too heavy for any normal human to wield.

“Here, take this,” she told him.

The Surfer looked at her as if she was a little daft. “An... Axe?” he inquired uncertainly.

“Jarnbjorn!”

The exclamation turned heads as Thor took a step forward, staring at the weapon. “Where did you find that Axe?” he demanded quickly, plainly astonished to see it.

Sama barely glanced at him. “Not where you lost it, obviously.” The thunder god’s mouth opened and closed in a huff. “Surfer, this is a rare and precious Weapon with a unique ability... it can carve through the armor of Celestials.”

His metal face was almost comical in its amazement. “Truly?” he asked, taking it up in both hands.

“Don’t wield it merely like an axe, use it like a plow at great speed. If you can rend open their armor, Galactus can take them down incredibly quickly. I don’t think any of them have seen it before, but they will recognize its power after you use it, so be wary.”

He hefted the godly Weapon, and nodded once to her. His silver board rose, and he flitted back to where his master was coming down from the sky.

------

“Hey there, Dynamo. Fancy meeting you here.”

I glanced up as Hawkeye gave me his best lady-killer smile, white on ebony, while leaning on my workstation. “Mr. Sexiest Golden-eyed Superhero of Los Angeles,” I greeted him cordially. “I’m surprised you’re here. Isn’t this way above your paygrade?”

He tapped the side of his head. “I wondered if seeing all this might allow me to grow my eyes. Sama agreed it couldn’t hurt to try.”

I considered that, and nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. How many spectra are you up to?”

“Just the normal E-M, although I’m expanding its breadth, and the Pspectrum,” he sighed. “Been wanting to expand them, but I don’t have the biggest Core in existence to do so.”

“A qualitative transformation doesn’t necessarily need a bigger Core, although it doesn’t hurt,” I chided him. “I imagine that’s why you’re here?”

“Yeah. I want to be looking at shit that literally starts blowing my mind, forcing me to expand my visual prowess.” He eyed me and the workstation I was at. “You’re actually running all this stuff? What’s it do?” he asked curiously.

I half-smiled. “We don’t even have proper names for half this stuff, and a good chunk of it is likely totally useless. The rest, well, we’re gonna be getting readings like nothing ever on Terra before.”

“How dangerous is it?” he asked softly, turning his head to the sky, and then looking around at the nominally unseen Skyfathers. His Eyes were stronger than he thought.

“We could be wiped out like ants in a tidal wave if they start throwing uncontrolled force bolts,” I said calmly, and he flinched. “But, we’ve got force fields with multiple layers, and notice where the Hag and the Bear are standing right now.”

He did turn around, finding them separated by about sixty feet, with everyone near them being ‘behind’ them, away from the direction of the falling space god.

I felt all the ley lines on the world pulse as Galactus hit them, acknowledging a power so much greater than they were. At the same time, the lines were bending and shuddering towards the distance, as thousand-foot forms emerged on the horizon and traversed miles with every step.

The titanic form of Galactus came down from the sky, perfectly in control, our perception being that the planet was coming up to Him, rather than Him descending to the planet. Yeah, he was in purple and blue, although there were differences even between how Dealer and I were seeing him. Causality of observation, such a thing to see in action.

Blue, green, aqua, golden, red-and-green striped, and black: the massive armored forms of the Space Gods paused a mile away from Galactus, merely a few steps at their respective sizes.

Galactus appeared unconcerned.

I reached out, grabbed Hawkeye’s head, and said, “Don’t move.” I flipped a vial with an eye dropper out of my Masspack and hastily yet precisely dropped them into his golden eyes, which immediately began to sparkle and glow.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed after I let go of him, blinking fast and looking around. “Holy shit!...”

I pointed, and the first force bolts started flying.

None of those from the Celestials actually struck Galactus, but sprayed wide and tore across the icy landscape, obliterating it. Shouts rose as the wave of annihilation spread right towards us... and ran right into two very impressive Forsaken fields, where they were stopped cold. The Shielders, their glowing Shield Auras in formation to take the blast for us, just sort of smiled when they saw it.

Dealer murmured something under her breath with a smile, even as pounding waves of force energy hammered against Source and Null. A weird set of Cards, like nothing used on Earth, swirled out and into place just in front of those two Forsaken Fields, glowing and fraying as force blasts slammed into them and ate away at them.

Interested eyes wondered what she was doing, even as Sama Rantha put her hand to her Sword, all kinds of ominous in her eyes.

We watched the Surfer rip a gash in the side of the Celestial in blue, and a second later Galactus’ attack smashed into the opening and blew a massive hole right through the Space God. It faltered and fell as the Celestials redoubled their attack, now paying attention to the Surfer and the Axe he bore.

The landscape around us was nearly fifty feet lower, hurled away by the wasted force energy of their attacks. Sama’s expression was quite unfriendly as she drew Tremble.

“Oh, shit,” muttered Hawkeye, on seeing that, his glowing golden eyes going really wide.

“Got that right, Corporal,” Mr. Hill said, having walked up next to him. “Space gods, huh?” he muttered fatalistically.

It was hard to look at her Sword, as it had been crafted to Divine levels. Conversely, my hackles were rising as she lifted it, because I couldn’t feel or see any power about it at all, which meant it was beyond my perception.

Ding! Ting!

I knew those notes all too well. And despite themselves, way over there, all the combatants instantly turned to look at her, the sound carrying instantly on the ley lines.

Tremble was suddenly down. At 15x reflexes, it was still too fast for me to see.