章節 66: Chapter 66 The Herald of Galactus
Within a familiar arena in the Astral Plane, Harry rushed back and forth dodging the attacks from an undefinable creature. When first conjured from the Power Cosmic energy stored by Harry, the being now attacking him took the form of a sphere of constantly shifting color. In the next moment its form shifted into something insect-like which used razor-like appendages to slash at Harry's position forcing him to dodge or block. Before it attacked again, its form shifted once more into a ball of emerald flames which rushed at Harry and tried to roast him to cinders.
With each attack, the strange being changed its form and method of attacking preventing, thus Harry from predicting its pattern and counter-attacking. If there was some pause or opening when the creature shifted he could use that, but the shifts were seamlessly integrated into the being's motions and consecutive attacks of different styles and types were launched like a flurry without pause.
The strength and speed of each attack had no way to overwhelm Harry as they matched his own level, but the range of attacks were far beyond anything Harry had ever encountered.
It had been two months since the Shuttle Incident which granted Reed and his friends their powers and Harry had spent that time studying the Power Cosmic among other things.
This was his first attempt to use Power Cosmic for Battle Meditation and it was certainly enlightening.
After observing the creature's attacks for several rounds, Harry saturated himself with Crimson energy and Dimensional energy and conjured an Eldritch longsword.
The being of Power Cosmic Harry just decided to call Anomaly turned into purple bush and shot out two dozen thorn covered purple vines at Harry's limbs and neck. The vines tracked Harry's position so Harry used a Dimension trick he learned from the Ancient One and curved the space causing the vines to bend around Harry as he rushed forward and attacked the bush. He slashed forward and a crimson cut neatly formed on the bush before it shifted into a massive wolf-like creature with spikes over its body.
Harry continued his assault and discovered another attribute of the Anomaly. Harry's Eldritch sword was slightly drained of energy when it came into contact with the Anomaly and the Anomaly used what it seemed to drain from the sword to heal itself. However, the amount it stole and used to heal itself was far, far less than the amount of damage inflicted on the creature with each of Harry's attacks.
Harry recognized that this was Power Cosmic's ability to turn other forms of energy into itself, though the speed it could absorb other forms of energy was very slow. Harry figured at higher levels, that speed would increase making fighting Anomalies in the future far more difficult.
Harry tried several different forms of attack but concluded that single target strong attacks were best. It healed itself with each attack so instead of a large amount of weak attacks it was better to use a small amount of strong attacks.
After about and hour of constant attacks between dodging and running away, Harry was able to chip away at the Anomaly's health bar and eventually it broke down and was destroyed. The energy that formed the Anomaly was greedily absorbed by Harry's Obscurus particles which easily reached saturation, causing them to multiply and increase Harry's level. It wasn't a full level gained from the one Anomaly of course as Harry was already rather close to leveling up, but the efficiency at which Harry's Obscurus particles replicated after absorbing Power Cosmic was far greater than other forms of energy he'd absorbed in the past.
This matched what Harry had discovered about Power Cosmic. It could turn into any form of energy and was probably a delicacy for a lifeform like Harry. Then again perhaps not. Harry doubted there were too many life forms out there capable of consuming any type of energy.
At the edge of the arena, a pedestal started beeping. Harry walked over to it and pressed a few buttons before picking up a corded phone like device off it. "Hello?"
The Ancient One said from the other end of the line, "Harry, there has been an incident. Something has breached the atmosphere and penetrated the mystic shields over the earth."
This got Harry's attention. Mystic threats could come from space as well and there were shields in place to stop them from getting close to the earth created by the Sanctum Sanctorums placed around the world. The shields of course only reacted to mystic threats as that is what they were designed for.
Harry asked, "Where was the breech?"
"New York City. It's why I'm calling you."
Harry inwardly rolled his eyes. One of these days he would just stop asking.
"Get the breech sealed and I'll check out the something. If I need backup I'll call."
Harry hung up the pedastal's phone and took a moment to concentrate and return from the Astral Plane to his body. The pedestal was AstralTech that forwarded his calls to the pedestal when he was Meditating so he wouldn't miss anything important.
Once he was in his body he turned invisible and made a silver portal into the sky above New York City and passed through using flight magic. It was just about morning and the streaks of sunlight could be seen stretching over the horizon and illuminating the city's skyline.
Harry created a few Mandalas which connected to the Mystical defense grid over the city. It pointed him to where the something had landed. Harry flew over using the mandalas as a compass and found that whatever had breached the shield, landed on top of the Baxter Building, though it wasn't there anymore.
Harry did a few scans and confirmed the Fantastic Four had also left the building. Harry guessed he wasn't the only one on the trail of this visitor and did few calculations to determine where it had flown off to. The feedback from his spells however gave him nothing useful. The target may have adapted.
Still, he had a plan B. Harry pulled out his cellphone and used Administrative Access to locate Ben Grimm's cellphone. Illegal? Probably. But useful.
Once Harry had a location, he made another portal and walked through.
The location was a field in some woods outside New York City. The flames on the ground were the evidence of a recent battle and the four were standing off against a male form humanoid who had a completely reflective surface, as if made from or covered in silver.
The man seemed to be gathering energy into his hand and Johnny was launching a stream of fire at him. Between Johnny and the silver being was what could only be described as a solid silver surfboard. It stood in the way of the stream of fire and in the same instant Harry stepped out of the portal, the silver being released the stored energy in what felt like a pulse.
Ben was charging forward just as the energy pulsed out and in the same moment Ben grabbed the man's surfboard and in one fluid motion, whacked the silver dude over the head with it. The silver dude staggered back which caused Ben to strike him a few more times with his surfboard until the silver dude was unconscious.
Harry became visible and walked into the clearing. He asked aloud to get their attention "Who the hell is this guy?"
Reed and Susan turned over to see Harry and the former asked, "Professor Potter? What are you doing here?"
Harry honestly answered, "A friend of mine monitors weird stuff that enters the atmosphere and called me. I tracked that guy to your roof but lost his trail so I tracked you guys instead."
Johnny said, "We followed him here because he didn't seem up to any good, but he wiped the floor with us."
Ben held the dude's surfboard and said in his standard gravelly voice, "He could fly around on this thing and shoot energy beams and stuff."
Susan added, "My force fields didn't work against him at all."
Reed walked over to the unconscious foreigner and said, "I'm concerned with that pulse he sent. It looked like a signal or beacon."
Harry frowned and said, "Let's take him back. We got questions for him."
Harry walked over to the man and picked him up. What he found through his energy senses was most discouraging. He said, "No one but Ben touches the Surfboard. That thing is concentrated Power Cosmic. Among you all, Ben has the highest concentration of Power Cosmic, so he can touch it safely, but anyone else touching it won't end well. If a normal person touched it, it's possible they'd explode."
Ben took another look at the Surfboard in his grasp and shrugged before walking over to their Flying Car.
Harry said, "We need answers fast, so let's skip the ride back." Harry directly opened a portal which lead to the port the Flying Car took off from and threw the portal forward, engulfing everyone and translocating them into the tower.
Ben was the first to ask, "Umm, what just happened?"
Reed answered, "Stabilized singularity based transdimensional relocation." He was still staring with fascination at the space where the silver ring vanished after passing over them.
Johnny asked, "What?"
Susan summarized, "Harry made a wormhole and threw the event horizon at us."
Ben looked over at Harry and asked, "You can do that?"
Harry nodded, "Among other things. Save the questions for later. We need to restrain this guy first."
The amount of energy Harry felt within this surfer dude would put his level if he had one at about one hundred. Strong, but not that strong. Logan could probably kick his ass. His Surfboard on the other hand was something else entirely. It was practically alive, like another heart. If it had a level, it would be over nine hundred. That meant when the guy was on his surfboard, he was about level 1000.
Until now the strongest people Harry had seen on the planet were the Ancient One who'd be about level 270, Selene the Immortal, who was around 400, and Apocalypse, which Harry would guesstimate was around 320. His death did give Harry a bunch of levels after all.
Of course, those numbers weren't entirely accurate. The Ancient One's title of Sorcerer Supreme wasn't for show. She could channel unbelievable amounts of energy from other planes and if she went all out, she could be measured closer to level 400 herself.
Selene couldn't recover lost energy so when she started fighting, her energy level would drop and after her fight with Harry, even if she survived, she likely would have dropped to somewhere between level 200 and 300. Harry had warned her multiple times after all that she'd gain nothing fighting him, so it wasn't his fault the fight ended the way it did.
Apocalypse was weaker than Selene at her full strength but he didn't get weaker as the fight went on. In fact since his tech could absorb energy, he could probably wipe the floor with Selene if they clashed because he had equipment which was far superior to anything she had access to.
So depending on Path Mastery, and Equipment, Level was just a number. Up to a certain point. 1000 on the other hand was something else altogether. If it were some distinct form of energy, then it wouldn't be that bad, but this was a level 1000 concentration of Power Cosmic of all things?! That wasn't good.
If this guy sent a signal, Harry was concerned, so he didn't bother hiding his abilities if doing so would waste time.
In the two months since the accident, Reed had turned the top floor of the Baxter building into a massive lab. Harry found a heavy duty gurney that looked like it was made to support Ben's weight and Johnny's flame and set the Surfer on top. He took a few things out of his inventory and used them to strap the Surfer down.
Watching from the side, Reed said, "I believe he channels his power through his surfboard. Can you isolate him from his connection to the board?"
Harry answered, "Already done. Honestly, this guy is too much. If he was on his surfboard, there's no way I can think of to beat him."
Reed went over to a computer terminal set before a massive screen and said, "I would have to agree with you. His powers caused our own to go out of control. When he hit me with one of his energy pulses, I lost all semblance of solidity for a while."
Johnny added, "Yeah, my flames only looked like they inconvenienced him and he flew around too fast. If he didn't get off his board, Ben wouldn't have been able to get him."
Susan asked, "Why did he get off his board though?"
Harry remembered the pulse and considered it. He answered, "Perhaps the pulse he sent required information that could only be derived if his feet were on the ground. But if so, why'd he leave the city for a wild area? Did he want to stand on a specific type of ground before using it to send a pulse of information?"
Reed had already brought up a few programs, maps, and scanning tools on his terminal and asked aloud, "And what was the purpose of the pulse? It couldn't have been a call for help or distress beacon, not for a being with his level of might on a planet such as ours."
Suddenly, the scanners on the terminal screen showed line after line of red bars and the speakers were blaring loudly in alarm.
Ben said, "That doesn't sound good."
Susan joined Reed at the terminal and Reed said, "I'm getting distorted readings from all over the planet."
Susan brought up a video screen which appeared to originate from a camera outside the Baxter building. The clear morning sky was suddenly filled with strange clouds which gave an ominous feeling and were getting darker and darker.
From the gurney, their captive woke up and said in english, "Galactus is coming."
Harry summoned the gurney rather than walk over to it causing it to quickly roll over to him. He asked, "Is Galactus the one you called? Who is he and why'd you call him?"
The silver dude looked around but didn't seem to mind his predicament. "You struck me with my own board. Impressive." He looked over at Harry and answered, "Galactus is the Devourer of Worlds and I am his Herald. I seek out planets rich with life for him to feast on."
The lab was silent for a few moments. Had anyone else said something so bizarre, they likely would have been mocked or laughed at. No one in the room however found it funny.
Susan was the first to break the silence, "Can you tell him to go away? This planet is filled with innocents. Billions of them!"
The surfer answered, "If Galactus does not consume worlds, the hunger within will kill him. He will not be dissuaded. There are innocents on this world, but there are innocents on many worlds. However this world has far greater life energy than any I have ever seen. After devouring your world, Galactus's hunger will be alleviated for a long time. This will spare many other worlds from his hunger, saving the innocents of many worlds at the cost of the innocents of a single world."
Something about that didn't add up to Harry. If so, why hadn't Galactus devoured this world already? Harry asked, "Why'd you come to this world?"
"Originally I did not come here seeking a world. Your world is hidden from my long range senses. But I felt a source of Power Cosmic originate nearby and when I came to investigate, I found your world."
Harry loudly groaned causing everyone in the room to give him a questioning look.
The Ancient One obviously had not seen a future where the world got devoured. So why were they targeted now? Apparently it was because of that pyramid. She couldn't see consequences of Harry's actions meaning this was, technically, his fault.
Harry wondered about why the planet was shielded from the Surfer's sight since he doubted any Sorcerer Supreme of the past knew specifically of Galactus. If they did, they probably would have written it down somewhere and Harry had read everything in the temple and had never heard of him.
Then Harry remembered that there were other protectors of this planet and they had probably set up the shield.
Harry looked back down on the Surfer and said, "This planet is Migard and protected under the Nine Realms Treaty enforced by the Allfather Odin Borson and the realm of Asgard. They set up the shield which hid this planet and attacking this realm means incurring Asgard's wrath."
The four humans in the room all had no idea what Harry was speaking of but the Surfer chuckled. He said, "Apologies, but Galactus's hunger does not recognize such treaties. I am familiar with Asgard, but once Galactus arrives, the Allfather's sight will be covered and by the time he chooses to send someone to investigate, Migard will have been consumed. Look for yourselves, he is already here."
The camera feed on the monitor started getting fuzzy like the cable/antenna input on a tv. Reed and Susan spent a moment to recalibrate it and once finished, the screen showed a massive sphere-like spaceship far larger than the tallest building in New York. It descended through the clouds and stopped just over the Baxter Building.
Harry's phone rang and when he answered it, the Ancient One said with more concern than he'd ever heard from her, "Harry. The future is gone. The energy reserves from the planet's Mystic defenses were instantly drained when something passed through them."
The phone was on speaker so everyone in the room heard the call. Harry said, "I'll think of something. Work on damage control."
Harry hung up and called another number. On speaker once it answered, Harry said, "Xavier, we have a planet devouring alien in a city sized spaceship parked outside New York. Get your ass in Cerebro and see if you can reason with it or attack it if need be."
Xavier could feel how serious Harry was and instead of questioning it, responded, "Understood," and hung up the call.
Reed was still monitoring the camera feed and asked, "Why isn't anyone looking at the ship?"
The cameras included some shots of people in the city walking around but though some looked up at the sky, no one specifically pointed at the ship.
The Surfer answered, "Beings under a certain level of existence cannot perceive the ship without assistance."
Susan said, "Well, that's not stopping the military." She brought up another screen with a map and two moving, blinking dots and said, "We have two missiles on the way."
Harry figured Reed wasn't the only person on the planet who could calibrate a monitor so others would have noticed as well.
The dark clouds over the Earth slowly became thicker. Strange lights and sounds could be seen and heard coming from them, all over the world.
Reed had a dozen scanners up on his half of the monitor and said, "The energy radiating off those clouds is shifting the frequency of all the electron valence bonds on the planet." He looked over at the Surfer and asked, "Why?"
The Surfer again helpfully answered, "When the frequency matches the void at the center of Galactus's stomach, he will start feasting. Once he starts, it cannot be stopped. All forms of energy and all forms of life on this planet will lose cohesion and be sucked directly into his mouth as if it were a black hole. I have seen it happen thousands of times. When he is finished, all that will be left of your world will be a cold and empty husk."
Ben asked, "So, what's the cloud doing?"
Reed clarified, "It's cooking the planet."
Harry asked, "How long until he finishes?"
"About ten minutes."
Everyone turned to the Surfer in shock and Harry rolled his eyes. No wonder the Surfer had no qualms answering their questions. He was completely convinced nothing he said would help.
Harry had been looking into the Surfer's eyes the whole time using legilimency but the man's mind was wrapped in clouds of darkness and Harry couldn't break through them.
Harry wouldn't bother calling Jean. From the last update he'd gotten from her he knew she was three and a half galaxies away. Harry had given her a tool that could display her six dimensional coordinates and if she gave them to Harry, he could use them to make a portal directly to her. However if Harry sent her a message using the AstralTech communicator he'd given her, it would take a week for her to receive it and another week for her to send those coordinates back. That was why he gave her an intergalactic portkey. Once activated it would return her to earth in a moment, but Harry couldn't activate it remotely and it would still take a week to send her a message to activate it on her end.
On the screen, the missiles had reached the ship, but once they got close, they vanished.
A long distance telepathic message was sent to Harry from Xavier. 'Harry, it's worse than you thought. That isn't a ship. That is a miniaturized space traveling planet a quarter the size of our own. I have spoken with Galactus, but convincing him to find another world was like convincing a starving dog to ignore meat in front of it. He shared with me a fraction of his hunger. It was pure pain, suffering, and madness greater than any I have ever encountered. I could not dissuade him and even Cerebro cannot strengthen me enough to attack him. I have asked Erick for help but the best he can do is buy us some time. You'll need to find something else.'
Reed didn't hear the message but had already zoomed into the ship once the missiles vanished and after several rounds of magnification only possible because of the high end equipment of the Baxter building, they saw the missiles again, heading slowly for the ship.
Susan grasped what was happening first and said, "Incredible. The space around the ship is in a completely separated timespace."
Reed added, "It's a factor of 10,000 to one. That ship is a lot bigger than it appears.
Harry and the rest watched the two tiny missiles crashed onto the ship's exterior and made two tiny puffs of light. The ship looked completely unharmed. At first Harry thought if it was a normal ship, he could portal inside and sabotage it. Apparently it was Death Star sized ship and unless he conveniently found a astrodroid with the Planet Ships' designs, he wouldn't be able to disable it from within without being discovered and probably eaten by Galactus before he could do anything useful.
In the next moment, a pulse of white light was shot from the ship into the clouds.
Still bound to the gurney, the Surfer said, "Many planets far more advanced than yours have been devoured by Galactus."
Reed looked over the readings from the white pulse and said, "All of the long range weapon systems on the planet were just disabled!"
Harry raised an eyebrow and took out a spare Planet Busting Phoenix Fire Reality Bomb from his inventory. The moment he did, Harry felt the energies within start to stabilize and the Phoenix Fire start to die out. The bomb worked on instability increasing until it reached a critical point. A planet wide field that not only prevented it from becoming more unstable but decreased its inherent instability meant that this Bomb was now a massive paperweight.
As another test, Harry took out a magic grenade. These were just magically conductive materials that exploded a few moments after Harry had injected enough magic in them to reach critical mass. Once Harry took it out from his timeless inventory, the critical mass of Exotic energy immediately stabilized and calmed down. All of his magic weapons were based on the concept of exploding after reaching critical mass. All of them were now useless. The only one left was his railgun but he only had three of those and each only had six shots. That wasn't anywhere near enough to take down a friggin Planet Ship.
Another alarm blared on the monitor.
Reed pulled up another window and saw a massive city sized asteroid rapidly descending through the atmosphere on a direct collision course with the Planet Ship.
Harry recognized that asteroid. It was a space colony set up by Magneto, Asteroid M. Though empty now, he'd been working on it for years and once finished, he'd use it as a place for Mutants to live freely without fear. Harry's eyes widened with shock when he realized that Magneto was using his most precious treasure as a blunt weapon to attack the Planet Ship.
The Surfer could see the monitor from where he was bound and said, "Clever, but useless. The shields on Galactus's ship cannot be harmed by an asteroid."
Everyone in the room watched as the asteroid passed through the field separating the spacetime of the ship and shrunk accordingly. However it was still very large.
The asteroid impacted the ship and caused a massive explosion with a blinding light. It broke through the ship's exterior and tore apart the hull.
The surfer's calm exterior broke at the sight, "That's impossible."
Harry used that moment to look into his eyes once more. He found a hole in the darkness and used every bit of magic and telepathy he had to pierce into the depths of his mind.
Within those clouds Harry found bound memories. Harry didn't know how long he had until he was kicked out, so he released every memory he could find. The cloud of darkness followed him and Harry had to move quickly from one memory to the next. Harry could tell that these were the memories of a man's life, probably the Surfer's. Originally he broke into his mind hoping to get lucky and find some intel, but if he could get the man his memories back, perhaps he could gain even more.
Wizards knew more about sealing and erasing memories than most and Harry knew more than any Wizard. Recovering stolen memories was hard for others but for Harry it wasn't difficult. The power sealing those memories was in fact Power Cosmic, but Harry had spent enough time studying it to make getting through the seals a simple matter.
With each freed memory, the black space filled with more and more light. The dark clouds continued to attack Harry but got thinner and thinner with each unlocked memory. After Harry unlocked another, it seemed to start a chain reaction causing the other memories to unlock in a massive wave of blinding light.
The darkness shattered and revealed the mind of a family man from an alien world.
Harry retreated from his mind in the next moment. The entire exchange had taken less than a second.
Reed was still monitoring the footage and said, "There was Power Cosmic in that asteroid! That must be how it penetrated the ship's shielding!"
Harry then remembered when he shielded the Earth from the pulse of Power Cosmic, he only shielded the Earth. Asteroid M was actually floating in orbit further out that most Satellites and apparently got a full blast of the wave. Some of it had probably turned into other forms of energy but not all of it and there was enough there to cause a reaction when striking the Planet Ship.
The black clouds over the earth became quiet but didn't disperse. The damage caused wasn't enough to disable the ship.
Reed zoomed in on the damage and said, "It's repairing itself at a remarkable rate."
From the gurney, the Surfer groaned with a headache and said, "My name. Is Norrin Radd."
Everyone turned to him. Harry said, "I was able to break into your mind and unseal your memories. Did Galactus seal them?"
The Four looked back at Harry in confusion. Norrin answered, "Yes. Long ago, Galactus came to my world. I promised I would serve him if he spared it. He agreed, and I became his Herald, the Silver Surfer."
Johnny asked, "Wait, your name is actually the Silver Surfer?"
Harry glared at him and said, "Not now Human Torch!"
Johnny pouted and Norrin continued, "My memories of my home world and my life were sealed to prevent me from returning."
Harry asked, "Can you think of a way to save this world?"
After a moment of thinking, he said, "Perhaps, there is a way. There is a device stored on Galactus's Homeworld called the Ultimate Nullifier. It is the only thing I believe we with can threaten Galactus with."
Johnny asked, "And just how are we supposed to get there?"
Harry had the same question since he didn't have the coordinates and he doubted the Surfer had them in a six dimensional format Harry could use to portal to the location. However for the first time since receiving the Ancient One's call this morning, Harry smiled once he heard a familiar sound.
*Ping*
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*Author's Note*
I watched the original Fantastic Four Cartoon episode Galactus on Disney+ and I cringed so many times. The technobable they improperly used sent shivers down my spine so there was no way I was going to use that. I did my best to give a somewhat realistic (by MCU standards) means of how Galactus would attack the planet, how it would work, how others would respond, and how he would react to their responses. I had the idea of launching Asteroid M at Galactus the whole time because I loved the idea. There is no way to beat Galactus and the only reason they did in the cartoon and comics was because of Uatu the Watcher. I didn't want to include him so I had to come up with a series of coincidences which could stack up to create some comic level plot armor and give them a fighting chance. Now just have to figure out how to get the Nullifier. In the cartoon, the homeworld was covered in clouds that could negate the existence of anyone who came into contact them and the homeworld itself would annihilate anyone who set foot on it so getting it won't be like picking up milk from the grocery store.
If anyone thinks they are clever, feel free to comment how you think a pre-Iron Man MCU/X-Men/HP-verse would handle this version of Galactus. I did my best to close all the loopholes I could think of but I probably missed a few. Against a Planet Ship filled with Power Cosmic energy and defenses, none of the mutants introduced so far (besides Jean) can do anything and other powerful mutants either haven't awoken or are not in a condition to fight. Please don't say Xavier should tell Harry to drop his son off on the ship. I haven't even decided if I want Legion here and if I do, he probably wouldn't have powers yet since if he did, Shield would know of him which at the moment they don't.
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