“I am asking the members of the Celestial-born Eternals what their intentions are, now that their masters have departed, their thralldom is ended, and for the first time since they were uplifted from the primitives of this world a million years ago, their wills and destinies are their own,” Briggs’ voice rumbled forth, filling the air. “Within this chamber sits enough power to reshape the world, for good or ill, for advancement of all or the glorification of the privileged few.

“I am a monarch, and I protect my people. While the shackles of the Celestials were upon you, the Eternals did not interfere in the affairs of mankind more than in passing. They are gone, and will not be returning.

“I thus speak to free Eternals, the first free Eternals since your creation. It is a moment and time with no precedent in your history.

“While the average human alive might scarcely realize you exist, the powerful of this world are neither so uninformed, nor so foolish as to ignore you.”

He tapped the head of Endure on the tiled floor once for emphasis, and the simple tap boomed out, echoing off the walls and floors of the chamber for nearly twenty long seconds before it faded away, even with some of the startled Eternals covertly trying to silence it more quickly.

“I thus ask if the Eternals have intentions that can be conveyed to the powerful of the world. If you are not united in your intentions, that is another answer. If you wish to remain silent, then I am sure that you realize that is the very worst kind of answer.

“What are the intentions of the Eternals of Terra, now that your masters are departed?” he reiterated once again, and punctuated it with another echoing tap of the butt of his Hammer.

“A mere mortal dares to demand such things of us?” a sneering voice rang out into the following silence. Briggs’ violet eyes shifted over to the olive-skinned, dark-haired man who had risen to his feet. Lines of authority fluttered over to him, conveying support from his followers. “Why should we care of the desires of one who will be dust and gone before I forget what I had for breakfast?” he laughed, and there were a few snickers and smiles from other Eternals.

Briggs flicked his wrist absently.

The Eternal had quick reflexes, and tensed instantly, but even so was late... only to see the Hammer roar past him to his left. He was about to smirk and say something when it bounced off the wall behind him, not losing any momentum, and ricocheted into the middle of his back.

There was a crack of breaking bone, and a scream of pain as the Eternal was smashed out of his lofty seat, through the air as the shocked Eternals watched, hit the floor, and went sliding across it... ending up right at the boots of the Great Bear.

Endure slapped directly back into Briggs’ hand. Totally ignoring the outrage in many eyes, Briggs turned his eyes on the twitching Eternal at his feet.

“Druig, the Worm of Olympia,” he growled, and the pure lethality of those words silenced those watching before they could protest. “The most accomplished mental rapist on Terra today. Psychopath power seeker. Traitor to the Eternals. Sadist... I have seen your work in Columbia, oh Worm of Olympia. I saw your hands in the camps of the Nazis, and the Khmer Rouge.

“You are a thing that will do anything to gain power. It is writ on your soul. You think yourselves beyond mortal judgement, and your kind always forgive you and take you back, despite your many, many sins against them.”

There was a scream from the man, and blood suddenly burst from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth as he lifted his head towards the primitive looming so far above him.

“Please, try to get into my mind again. I’ll give you a moment to gather your wits again.” Briggs sounded quite amused.

“Master Briggs, your attack on an Eternal...” began Elder Zuras.

“This is not an Eternal. It is a demon in the seeming of humanity,” Briggs interrupted flatly, not even looking at Zuras. “You couldn’t even kill it and excise it from your midst, because it just...kept...returning!” Endure rose slowly, ominously. “Worm of Olympia, you asked why you should care?” His growl made the floor rumble, the air tremble with constrained fury. “What are you, but a threat to those I have sworn to protect?! What are you, but a maggot of a soul enslaved by uncaring things not of this world?! What are you, but a traitor to the humanity you were carved from by pitiless hands, and made to serve?!

“YOU THINK YOU ARE ETERNAL TO ME?!”

Endure came down. There was no stopping it, less than an eyeflick, and BOOM, the impact rocked through the whole of the assembly, driving all the Eternals to their feet.

There was no spray of blood and gore. There was an eruption of unwhite fires and a blast of thick white mist, filling the floor of the audience chamber knee-deep instantly, sparkling faintly.

Uncaring of their eyes, Briggs bent down slowly, his rather overlong arms extending down, his gauntlet clamping onto something, and he straightened slowly.

A crystalline skull gleamed in his long fingers.

I know of your ‘Great Machine’,” he growled softly, but his words carried clearly to everyone in the chamber, and they gasped in shock. “Furthermore, I know of your masters’ foresight. Mistress Death does not look kindly on those who return willy-nilly from Her Realm. As such, there is a price for every time your ilk has come back from the dead.

“Every time you rise again, a young human must die before their time. Murdered by your soulless Machine to return you to life!” Breaths hissed out in shock at his words, with the eyes of some of the Eternals indicating they had not actually known that.

“But if that process is interrupted, the link between young life harvested and a maggot’s soul burned away, imagine what happens to something that thinks itself immortal.”

His violet eyes played over the shocked and staring Eternals looking down at him, aghast that he knew such a thing about them. “You are all fools. Do you think the Celestials only created your kind here? On countless worlds, Eternals of other races were fashioned from their primitives... and in time, those races grew fed up with them, and slew them permanently. They invented weapons to slay souls, they severed the threads of life, they destroyed the Great Machine... many ways, many means, and those that thought they were Eternals found themselves dogs tied to chains, and when that chain was cut, they died like dogs and mortals die.”

His face rose, facing down that entire chamber, grim and uncaring of their fear and wrath. “Do you know that there is a Title, granted by Death Herself, when you kill something that should be eternal, immortal, undying? That thought its life was beyond Her reach?

“Such beings are Courtiers of Death, for She has taken them into Her Court!

“The Worm of Olympia is dead. Your master’s precious Machine will not safeguard his soul, and he will not be returning. For his treachery, for his tortures, for his murders, and for his millennia of raping the minds of friends and foes alike, he is dead.

“Ninety-nine of you remain... ninety-eight if you exclude Chronos in his egocentric meditations among the stars.

“You are not immortal. You are not unkillable. You are merely powerful... and we, we have the power to send you off to Death, to stop your murderous Machine from claiming more of us, and not having to worry about your occasional insanities or power-madness leaking into our world.

“This is why I ask what your intentions are. Some of you have naked ambition on your souls, and now you have no obligations to your alien masters to satisfy. You have dreams and ambitions of power, and if you can’t have them over your kind, you will settle for humans.

“Some of you think yourselves great and wise, and imagine taking over humankind as learned and beneficent rulers, possibly leading them to a great future as god-kings at the top of the world.

“Some of you would simply withdraw from mortal life and pursue your own ambitions and studies into the science and power of your makers. Some would continue your duties of guardianship and stewardship, as you have for millennia.

“Long have the Eternals stood together. Bloody and violent have been the conflicts you’ve had, secure that you cannot truly die, when you have warred.

“A war between the Eternals would endanger a significant portion of the planet that birthed you and I. I doubt you feel much loyalty to it, as powerful and endless as you’ve become, and I do not care. The Land will feed on you, the same as any demon prince or mad god that threatens it.”

His pale violet eyes, completely unmoved by their fear and shock as they understood that something had just changed radically in the balance of power, moved back to Elder Zuras.

“If you would care to work alongside humanity, and help lift it to true greatness, you will be welcomed into the world and the efforts we are making.

“If you merely wish to watch and guard and offer wisdom, well enough, we can live without you.

“If you wish neither of these things, then I advise that you form a Uni-Mind and depart from this world, for it has grown past the point of tolerating your whims for the sake of your power, and you can seek your enlightenment elsewhere.”

“You dare dictate terms to us?!” one of the lesser Eternals croaked up. Zarin, if their files were right, and Briggs had been watching the Eternals for decades to find out who was who and where.

“Ah, yes, Zarin, the Lord of Death Squads. Where is your murderous companion, Aginar? Training more Night and Fog teams?” Briggs replied blandly. “Two more rabid jackals the world can do without. Come at me, you yapping cur. I’m not some Columbian peasant you can terrorize.”

The Eternal flushed at being called out. “Do you think you can take on all of us, you blink of dust?! Time already took all your kind!”

“If by ‘my kind’ you mean my family and friends, no, the Deviants did that. And you know what I did to Lemuria in exchange.” His voice was as flat as doom, and the Eternals all tensed. While it was possible that they might have been able to do the same, it would not have happened without using doomsday weapons that might have rocked the entire planet. The Great Bear had mobilized his country, advanced their technology decades in a short period of time, and then simply atomized the Deviant cities in the oceans and underground en masse in outright war without a shred of mercy. “The more knowledgeable among you might know that great numbers have never bothered me at all, especially those of rabid, yapping jackals.

“Come down, jackal. The End of your Eternity awaits you.”

Zarin was an Eternal. He’d fought in countless battles, skirmishes, even wars. He was inhumanly tough, strong, tireless, and skilled. He’d died many times in battle, and it had never deterred him when it was time to die again.

But now... this was death facing him. REAL death, the end of all things. He wouldn’t be coming back from it, and he knew he couldn’t possibly beat the Great Bear. Just that flick of a wrist, breaking the sound barrier, and carrying so much force that Druig was literally blown right to atoms as his Eternal coherence failed.

Briggs scanned the whole chamber, ignoring the way Zarin’s legs were trembling in fear. The fool had realized he was on the cusp of death forever, and just like that, his courage had failed him. Knowing you could not die was petty and false courage. Now Zarin was looking into Death’s dark abyss, paralyzed by the very idea his million years of days were coming to an end.

“Hmmph. I see I will not get an answer today.” His eyes returned to Zuras, who had stayed silent and tight-lipped, paying more attention to those around him than his guest. Clearly, he didn’t miss Druig at all. “I highly recommend you all enter your Uni-Mind and meditate upon what is your best course of action, now that Death is here and not afraid to take you from your leash-holders.”

Spinning on his heel, he walked out of the broad hall, his steps quiet as a ghost, but Endure’s long haft was rolling and echoing with every stride as he made his way out of the chamber. That beat built upon itself, and seemed to persist for far too long after he exited the place.