Godhood: for Dummies - Chapter 26

A/N - Sorry about the delay on this one. Work is going crazy. I think I'm going to stick with a once-a-month schedule for chapters, but if I have extra time for more, I'll do more.

Next chapter for Cobalt is almost done as well. Hoping to have that out soon.

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Nathan kept a wary eye on Galacta as she came back to herself. Her eyes, which had been beacons of light dying the void purple, had dimmed back down to non-blinding levels. A hand covered them after a moment, gripping her head as if trying to squeeze a headache away. 

He watched her shiver a bit before opening her mouth, and letting out a space-shattering belch. 

Reality was just not working correctly today. Partly his own fault, since he had already been speaking in the vacuum of space, but he wasn’t sure if that burp was riding on the coattails of his actions, or if Galacta’s instinctual use of the Power Cosmic was still warping the laws of physics. 

Somewhat confident that the girl wouldn’t be trying to tenderize him like a slab of beef anymore, he looked down to where his arm was slowly reconstituting itself. Outside of the pain, the next strongest feeling he was experiencing was relief. Not because he didn’t like that arm anyway, or some other contrived bullshit to make himself feel better. 

No, he felt relieved because his Kimoyo bracelet was on his other wrist. Alice was safe and sound, and not in the gullet of a reality-eating, pseudo-space goddess. 

He had gotten overconfident. Being made of vibranium did not mean that her housing was invincible. He might be a god now, with access to two Infinity Stones, magic, and plenty of other advantages, but he wasn’t invulnerable. He was not infallible, invincible, untouchable, or any other synonym of a word that meant he could ignore danger. 

Especially not when it puts his daughter at risk. He should have tossed the bracelet through a portal as soon as he realized Galacta was there. 

Even with the Power Stone, he had only really been able to match Galacta. And even then, blow for blow, she probably would have won in the end. On top of that, if she had been able to think past her hunger, she would have been far more dangerous to contend with. 

He was still new to this… scale. Most anything he might contend with on this level would be far more experienced than himself. Anything on the level of a god would have been alive for significantly longer than his pitiful half-a-century. Galacta was definitely older than her appearance suggested, for instance - but he wasn’t entirely sure by how much. 

Nathan winced as a new set of nerves fizzled into existence among the musculature of his forearm. All slowly wrapping around a new set of vibranium bones and reinforced connective tissue. 

The skin came last in the process, and formed much slower than the rest. It took far more concentration to create his body’s membrane than the rest of the arm - discounting maybe the nerves. 

The whole process, though, only took a few minutes. Which was still kind of jarring, considering everything with Galacta had occurred within a ten minute time frame. The fight itself had been over the course of negative minutes, technically. 

Because of time shenanigans. 

There were many tales of divine battles that lasted millenia. Endless fighting, infinite armies, and unyielding foes. If Nathan wanted to be poetic about it, he would say that the gods experienced time in a subjectively bendy ball of bullshit. 

Nathan would have likened it to Dr. Who’s “Timey-whimey” explanation, but it was only the case for a certain strata of existence. Only those who had some measure of divinity, or had an innate connection with Time could experience it the same way. 

It was like trying to describe color to someone that was born blind - or more accurately, a painter, trying to convince a blind child to buy the portrait of a stranger. It was just too esoteric to really make sense, unless you could experience it yourself. 

Divinity was based on belief in most cases. Mortals believed some convoluted things, and that mostly translated into gods that could disregard the natural laws in some unique ways. 

Conceptual dominion is a hell of a drug, kids. 

He flexed his hand, and shook out his reformed arm, giving it a cursory look through to make sure he rebuilt it correctly. A moment later he was satisfied with his work, if a little upset with how itchy the new nerves were.

His eyes found Galacta again, who seemed almost stunned and confused. She took a couple deep breaths (of empty space? Whatever, reality is a suggestion) and rubbed at her stomach. 

“Hey!” he called, prompting her to look up at him. “Are you done trying to eat me?” Saying words when there wasn’t any air to carry them was such a bonkers experience.

She tilted her head as if wondering what he was talking about, before widening her eyes in realization. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry!”

Nathan felt the space between them compress, and then the purple girl was directly in front of him. 

“Are you okay? Oh geez everything is so fuzzy!” She moved around him with a discerning eye. Square irises glinting in the light of the system’s star. Her voice seemed a bit echo-ey - as if there were two of her trying to talk at the same time inside of an echo chamber. 

It took Nathan a moment to realize that she was talking inside his head, and out loud at the same time. 

“You seem like you’re in one piece, and there’s nothing broke- where’s Earth?” Her eyes widened further, and she grabbed him by the shoulders. “Oh no, did I eat Earth?! Please tell me I didn’t eat Earth!”

Nathan blinked back at her. He was going to get whiplash. First, she decks him into a wall, then they do introductions, then they blow up a planet in a hunger-induced fight for survival, and now she was asking him if he was okay, and worried about Earth’s wellbeing.  

“Earth is fine.” He looked at her. Really looked at her.

The hunger that had encompassed her entire existence had receded back into a sort of mild… snackishness? Like she could eat, but she could forget about it if she had something better to do. 

Other than that, Galacta’s conceptual center was remarkably similar to a mortal’s. Filled with ever-changing ideas and definitions - but anchored similarly to a god’s, in that she had two major, central concepts. Discipline, and Hunger. The latter was obviously due to her nature as the daughter of the Devourer of Worlds. The former was obvious in hindsight. Only someone who could control that hunger would be able to retain any semblance of sanity. 

Currently, after informing her that the Earth wasn’t inside her stomach, the most prominent emotion she was feeling was relief. 

Two peas in a pod, them. Both Alice, and the Earth were safe, and neither of them were trying to kill each other. Stupendous. The last five minutes were totally not stressful as hell for no reason. 

“I teleported us to a different solar system as soon as you went crazy.” He clarified, glaring at the girl. 

“Hey! I’m not crazy!” She let go of his shoulders, and crossed her arms with a pout.

Nathan widened his eyes in mock realization. “Oh! Sorry, I meant absolutely batshit insane.” 

“You-” her face convulsed, “Okay that’s so totally unfair. You caught me on a really bad day, is all.” 

Nathan blinked at her in disbelief. “You ate my arm.” 

She blinked back, purple irises disappearing behind her eyelids before moving to look at his fully-intact set of arms. “Did you have three?” She asked sarcastically. “Because I’m counting four, perfectly good limbs.” 

“It got better.” He replied with a smirk, shoving down the obligatory ‘third arm’ dick joke. His innate childishness fighting for dominance against the fact that his daughter was listening. And thank fuck she was still around to do so.

She scowled. “I’m trying to apologize, here.” 

He nodded. “And I’m making it difficult.” 

“Why?!”

“Because you ate. My. Arm.” And nearly Alice.

Outright denial was on the tip of her tongue, but then she seemed to come to a realization. “Is…” she put a hand over her stomach. “Is that why I’m not hungry?” 

She looked up to him. Trepidation heavy in her conceptual core, but not on her face. “Is a Celestial’s limb that full of calories?” 

“I mean…” he tilted his head, “maybe? I’m not a normal Celestial. Most of them are as big as a planet, so just through sheer size? Probably.” 

She frowned. “Then if not that, what did I eat?”

Nathan glared.

“Oh for- why are you so upset about that? If I even did eat it, you can obviously fix it pretty quickly.” Galacta gestured wildly in frustration. 

He glared harder.

“I’m sorry, okay?! What do you want from me?!” 

The new god nodded, satisfied - at least outwardly so, and reached down to his hip, plucking the newest apple that grew on the vine around his waist. “You ate one of these,” he said.

Nathan spared a moment to be thankful he figured out the ‘vine’ portion of the Pupillam Vitae. It wasn’t really a vine, but the stem of the apple. The biggest obstacle to using the apple was the fact that the tree he could create with it would disintegrate when he plucked a new fruit from its branches. Meaning that he couldn’t have any semi-permanent use of the tree-forming ability under normal circumstances. 

However that was neatly sidestepped once he figured out that he could manipulate the stem of the apple as well. And the stem was considered as part of the apple, rather than part of the tree. Meaning it wouldn’t disintegrate when a new apple was plucked. 

He had been using it as a belt since he figured that out. 

Galacta’s eyes gleamed as her vision fixated on the fruit in his hand. Confusion evident, studying something only she could see. “Oh!” She remembered. “I was confused about that before I lost control-”

“Went crazy.”

She growled, and glared at him. “Lost control,” she corrected. “My calorie counter can’t seem to get a good measure on it. Jumping between four, and forty quintillion.” 

“Calorie counter?” It was Nathan’s turn to be confused, but he tensed as she leaned in a little closer to look at the apple. If the high numbers she was reading were the reason behind her little… episode, then he was feeling a bit nervous about letting her look at it again. 

She nodded distractedly, studying the apple - heedless of his own trepidation. “I’ve got a scanner that estimates biomass in caloric measurements. It helps me pick my meals a bit better,” she poked the apple with a finger, jostling it a bit in Nathan’s hand. “I remember looking at it while you were talking to Stark, and…” She trailed off.

“Then you went crazy.” 

“For goodness’ sake,” she grumbled. “I’m going to hurt you. On purpose this time, if you don’t shut up about that.” 

Nathan grinned and shrugged, finding it pretty entertaining to screw with the pseudo-space goddess. But even besides that, he hadn’t forgiven her. Not all of his sass was for the entertainment value. 

Alice was fine, he reminded himself. 

“I was a bit more hungry than usual today,” she said quietly. “Haven’t had too many good meals lately, and I used up most of my stockpile to make the new suit.”

She looked up to him with only her eyes, hiding a bit of an embarrassed blush behind the angle of her face. “The high number set me off,” she said. “And it just snowballed from there. Please tell me that I didn’t hurt anyone - permanently, or… eat anything too important?” She cut him off before he could bring up his arm again. 

Nathan sighed, forcing himself to cut her some slack. He knew she wasn’t even close to being in her right mind for the entire fight. Hunger had all but consumed her, and the only fault that he could really put on her shoulders was letting it get to that point. 

But what was she supposed to do? Eat a planet? Forty quintillion prospective calories would have been a shining beacon of respite for her.

Also, her puppy dog eyes were a weapon of mass destruction. 

He held up a hand, and counted off on his fingers. “The full list of things destroyed are; my arm-” her eye twitched and he smirked, “a dead planet, and a dead moon. Both of which had no life whatsoever. 

“Oh,” he blinked, “and Tony’s wall. Can’t forget that.” He held up four fingers. 

She snorted, and relief blinked throughout her conceptual core, before being replaced by hope and wonder. “That’s so much better than I could have hoped for,” she stood up to look him in the eyes - as much as one could stand up while floating in space. “Thank you. I don’t know if you have any idea what my life looks like, but I haven’t felt properly full in ages.” 

“Well, feeding you almost cost me an arm and a leg,” he grinned when that got her to choke out a laugh - one that she immediately seemed to regret if the half-hearted glare was anything to go by - then shrugged. “I can make as many of these as I want, so don’t worry about it.” 

“You-” Her eyes widened, big and round. “You can?” She almost whispered. 

In response, Nathan plucked the apple from his hip and held it out, only to be replaced by a new one on the vine immediately after. 

But he didn’t stop there. 

No, into the apple in his hand, he dumped his divinity. His Chi, Celestial and Eldritch energies, and even a bit of the primal Power from the Infinity Stone that hung from his neck. 

The red skin of the Pupillam Vitae appeared to crack, and flake off. Shedding it like the shell of an egg. Underneath was the sight that had stunned him previously. 

A golden, glowing, perfect fruit that didn’t look entirely real. Like it embodied the idea of an apple from the depths of human belief. So much so, that he was startled by what he saw. Not in its appearance - nor in its apparent nutritional benefits, but in its central concept. 

He picked out a name. One that was older than Pupillam Vitae. Much older.

Anu-mazān.

Sky Food, essentially. The food of the gods. Ambrosia. 

“Huh,” he blinked at the apple several times, unable to properly dictate his thoughts.

Instead of thinking about it, he handed the apple over to the girl in front of him, who held it in both hands with a sort of… reverence.

“So,” he started, “Galacta, right? Daughter of Galactus? How does that work?” 

She froze, and mechanically looked up at him from the apple. “Tell you what,” she breathed, “If you never ask that question again, you can call me Gali.” 

“But I very much want to ask that question again.” 

“I will hurt you.”

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” His mouth turned upwards in a shit-eating grin.

“I’m not a dog!” She yelled, and threw the apple at his head.

It bounced off, and floated into the vastness of the void - only to be telekinetically pulled back to the girl’s grasp in a regretful haste. 

They both just stayed there for a second, reflecting on everything. Relief, hope, befuddlement, and all the crazy of what just happened catching up with both of them.

Nathan couldn’t help the snort that left his face-hole. One that was quickly echoed by the girl in front of him.

Soon, they were both laughing.

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A/N - Can you guys give some feedback on this one? Something about it feels off to me. Like I'm missing something important, but I can't put my finger on it. Could just be overthinking it.