Godhood: for Dummies - Chapter 28

Nathan hadn’t been on the planet for fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes.

He only noticed after sitting down across from his teacher, but the world had already gone to shit. No wonder the Ancient One had been in full battle regalia and ready to throw down. She had no doubt been running around the entire planet putting out fires.

Once Nathan was in range of the planetary wards, it took a second, but the notification bombardment was impossible to miss. Demons were spawning across the globe, various extra-planar beings were slipping through the newly opened cracks, and there was an entire fleet of spaceships bombarding the Sanctum shields from orbit. 

Nathan had a lot of questions, but he was pretty confident that this was his fault. His ascension ripped away the Ancient One’s protections earlier on, and he had just punched a hole in the New York shield. He knew for a fact that both were required to keep up the standard protection that they all enjoyed.

With those having failed, Kamar-Taj was at war.

And three of the most powerful people on the planet were having a vaguely threatening conversation over tea, instead of doing anything about it. 

“I was not aware that Galactus had a child, let alone the fact that he could have one at all,” his teacher scrutinized. 

“Surprise?” Galacta said with a nervous smile.

The older woman peered at her for a moment before turning to Nathan with a raised eyebrow. 

He shrugged. “This one’s new to me, too.”

She nodded and turned back to the purple girl. “You’ve been here for thirty years, you said?” 

Galacta nodded slowly. “Thereabout, yeah.” 

“And you… disagree with your father’s disregard for life?” 

Galacta frowned. “That's why I left. He’s horrible.” 

“They have the same hunger issues, but the Purple People Eater here seems to have a conscience, at least,” Nathan interjected. 

Both turned to him, one in confusion, and the other in annoyance. “Hunger issues?” His teacher asked.

“Yeah? Wait, what do you actually know about Galactus?” Nathan leaned forward with a frown of his own.

“He is the World Eater, and is the only known innate holder of the Power Cosmic - at least he was before today.” She leaned back in her chair and cupped her hands. “Little information has made itself available when it comes to him. Only bits and pieces have survived, mostly by the efforts of his ‘Heralds.’” 

“Huh,” Nathan hummed. “Well, Galactus is actually the only survivor of the fifth Multiverse. We’re currently in the sixth, by the way. If I remember right, the act of surviving the death of the Multiverse kind of… imbued him with the Power Cosmic, and changed his physiology. Since then, he’s needed a lot of life energy to sustain himself and goes around eating anything and everything. 

“I’m like, ninety percent sure that the Power Cosmic is the reason that he needs to eat so much,” he continued. “To use it, he needs fuel, right? So-”

“How do you know that?” 

Nathan turned to Galacta. “What?” 

She was looking at him like he’d grown an extra leg. Off of his forehead. “The Power Cosmic stuff I understand,” she shook her head. “That kind of information can be pieced together, I suppose, but you’re saying that my father is literally older than all of existence? How is that even possible?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

Her face fell. “He’s not exactly what I would call… verbose.” 

“Nathan has a limited form of omniscience,” the Ancient One said patiently. “We have gotten used to him knowing certain details about our corner of reality.”

“And I’m just supposed to accept that?”

“Yes.”

Both women just stared at each other for a moment. There was no battle of wills, or animated sparks between their eyes. One was calm, as if stating the color of the sky, and the other was mildly frustrated. 

In the end, the Sorcerer Supreme nodded and stood from her chair. “I suppose that will do for now. We will have to hold the rest of this conversation for later, as we’re currently experiencing a crisis.”

“I was wondering when we’d get to that.” Nathan said blandly, standing up from his chair. “Where do you want me?” 

“Crisis?” Galacta asked.

“You’re the best equipped to handle the fleet in orbit. They’re little more than an annoyance at the moment, but that will change soon if they’re not dealt with.” She walked around her desk and reached out a hand to the purple girl. “It is nice to meet you, Galacta. If you could try and help out Nathan, that would be appreciated.”

Galacta blinked in confusion, but shook the offered hand. “Sure?” 

The Ancient One nodded, and a second later the other two occupants of the office found themselves alone. 

“Welp,” Nathan started, “time to go.” He put a hand on Galacta’s shoulder.

“What is even happen-”

The two appeared in the upper stratosphere, just under the combined Sanctum shield that covered the planet. 

“-ing? Geez that’s uncomfortable.” 

“You’re not keyed into the ward system - and we’re really going to have to talk about how you’ve been ducking it this entire time - but the planet is currently under attack by at least two armies, and probably a lot of extradimensional tourists.” He glanced over at her, then back up at the sky, searching for the source of the orbital bombardment. 

One of his initial questions was what kind of space fleet would actually trigger the shield? The damn thing would do almost nothing to stop a physical invasion, so the beings in question had to be alien to this dimension entirely. Lacking physical forms, made up of energy, or some sort of foreign matter that didn’t interact with the material plane in standard ways. 

The fact that it was definitely a fleet that was attacking made him think it was the latter - since it implied that they couldn’t survive in the vacuum of space. Or maybe had transportation issues?

On that note, why was he just looking with his eyes? 

Godeye and Eldritch Sight activated simultaneously at full blast, letting him peer into most layers of existence and immediately revealed the fleet he was looking for. As well as letting him see the pot-shots they were taking at the shield. 

Every few seconds, a massive explosion of greenish-purple energy splashed across his vision, obscuring the armada beyond. The ships themselves looked like hodgepodge amalgamations of overgrown gardens. Hulls coated in tree bark, vines and random greenery sprouting around them randomly, and more colorful than the most vibrant of rainforests. 

There were thousands of them. Of all shapes and sizes, with absolutely zero consistency. 

“Well this is new.” He said a bit dumbly.

“What is?” Galacta asked. “I’m looking at a lot of nothing, here.” 

Nathan eyed her. “You have the Power Cosmic, don’t you? You should be way better at this than I am.” 

“You hit it on the nose, earlier,” she sighed and placed her hands on her hips. “It requires fuel to use, and since I don’t eat planets I’ve been running low for a long while. I rely mostly on technology to get by.”

“Hence the purple suit?”

“It matches my eyes.” Her purple, square irises flared, and Nathan found himself agreeing. The color scheme suited her. 

He chuckled despite himself. “Well if it keeps you from going crazy again, I can give you as many apples as you want. So I’m going to either need you to learn magic really fast, or just sit back and wait until I deal with this.” 

If he had it right, the Power Cosmic should let her learn anything that anyone in living memory knew. He didn’t think her Cosmic Awareness granted any experience with that knowledge, but the knowledge itself should become ingrained as soon as she pulled on it.

So she should, theoretically, be able to learn any type of magic instantly. Hell, Cosmic Awareness might just let her see the fleet by itself. No magic needed. Still, though, he would rather her not need to use it if she had an alternative. Mitigate the risk of another episode as much as possible. 

“Stop calling me crazy,” she pouted petulantly, but nodded and closed her eyes. 

Within Godeye, Nathan noticed her hesitance. A giant block within her core that covered her access to the Power Cosmic. She breathed - yet again forcing Nathan to realize the lack of air and the bullshit surrounding his new existential tier - and he could see the block of hesitance start to whittle away.

He looked back up towards the fleet, and tried to gauge the time they had before the shield fell. It was honestly holding pretty well. There weren’t any cracks or any sign of it breaking. Like throwing rocks at a brick wall. So if the ships kept going at this pace - one or two shots every few seconds - the shield would likely hold for years. 

The problem would start when they got impatient and started to attack in ernest. But as it stood now, they were basically just knocking on Earth’s front door. 

With that realization, Nathan wasn’t really sure if this group was hostile, or just trying to get their attention. He also wasn’t sure which option he preferred, either. If they were hostile, he alone might be able to wipe them out pretty quickly. If they weren’t, then he would be facing some first-contact political shenanigans that he really didn’t have time for at the moment. 

“What did you want me to learn?” Galacta asked with a tilt in her head, and eyes scrunched shut. “Eye of Yemmer, Soul Sight, Eldritch Sight, or the Peering Moon?” 

Nathan blinked. “I don’t know what two of those are. I might ask you to teach me a few things later if that’s alright?” She frowned at him, and he noticed that her hunger was steadily growing. “Eldritch Sight should work.” 

The girl nodded, and a moment later opened her eyes revealing a golden edge around her square irises. 

Nathan idly noted that gold and purple worked very well with each other. 

“Those look like R’malk’i ships.” She turned to him and noticed him looking at her. Then quickly turned back towards the fleet.

Nathan raised an eyebrow, barely catching a whiff of embarrassment coming from her conceptual core. “What are the R’malk’i?” He asked instead of pressing her on it. 

“Salad- I mean, tree people,” she corrected herself. “They kind of look like asparagus. Greedy, intergalactic businessmen, basically.” She squinted. “R’malk’i are physical beings though. They should be fully visible without help.” 

Nathan groaned. “I swear if we’re being invaded by asparagus ghosts, I’m gonna flip.” 

Galacta snorted. “And I can’t even eat them if they’re not physical.”

“You like asparagus?” He gave her a disgusted sneer. She should totally be able to eat them though, he thought to himself. Her lightsaber-fork probably couldn’t interact with them, but that shouldn’t actually stop her from just sucking them in like Kirby. Maybe it was just inefficient without her tech?

“What’s wrong with that?” She challenged. “It’s nutritious.” 

“It’s disgusting,” he deadpanned. “Your taste in food has obviously been compromised.” 

“Well excuse me! I can’t usually afford to be picky!” She huffed dramatically, but Nathan noticed a tinge of self-conscious sadness wafting from her core. 

With that, his snark died. Instead of teasing her more, he dumped power into the vine on his waist, and handed her the resulting golden apple. “Come on. Let’s see what these spectral vegetables want. We can reeducate your tastebuds later.” 

She blinked at him, and took the apple with a small nod. The action was then punctuated by a particularly large splash of energy across the shield. 

“Looks like they’re getting impatient.” Nathan ‘ported them beyond the boundary and blocked the next shot with a blue Tao Mandala.  

“Cease,” he broadcast over four different lines of telepathy. The equivalent of a mental, open radio channel. 

“Is this planet open for auction?” He got back almost immediately. 

Nathan just stared at the largest of the ships - where the message had come from - then turned to Galacta.

She shrugged, not surprised at all. “Definitely R’malk’i.” 

“It is not,” he sent with a sigh. “Have you only come to try and purchase the planet?” 

“Yes. A new verdant asset is rare in this quadrant. Strange that one would appear so suddenly, and competition is fierce.” The voice paused for a moment, then, “Do reach out if you wish to sell. The R’malk’i’ka will buy at a premium.” 

One by one, the ghost ships blinked out of existence - either through some form of FTL travel, or other extraplanar method, Nathan wasn’t sure. 

Still, “That was anticlimactic as hell,” he mumbled. 

“The ‘ka’ modifier appears to mean ‘spirit’ in their language.” Galacta hummed, eyes glowing a bright purple - likely perusing through her Cosmic Awareness. 

“So they are ghost asparagus?” He tilted his head. “Asparagi? Asperaguses?” 

“All three are technically correct in modern English.” She replied, slightly zoned out. “Asparagi is the most correct-” she shook her head. “But no. They technically aren’t ghosts. The R’malk’i’ka are a sort of… subspecies?” 

“Nathan. Mephisto is attempting to break through. I require your assistance.” The Ancient One’s mental voice rang through both of their minds, clear as day, reminding them of the current situation on the surface. 

Nathan swung around and scanned the planet, looking for what would obviously be the largest disturbance, and didn’t manage to suppress a bewildered laugh.

“Of course it’s in Georgia.” Then, in response to his teacher, “We’re on our way.”

He held out a hand to Galacta, which she looked at like it was a snake about to bite her. As soon as she heard the name of the literal devil, there was a spike of fear in her core. And the apprehension was written on her face.

Even then, she only took a moment before nodding at him and taking his hand.

The two disappeared from the upper stratosphere, and plunged straight into Hell on Earth.