📍IRAQ

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Archaeologists were scavenging through the sand with their tools under the blazing sun, squinting their eyes against the strong wind that blew the sand and blinded their sight. They were doing their job, until their eyes glowed gold, snapping their heads to the side and moving to pack their stuff up and leave automatically.

When the two vans left the scene, Sprite waved her hands down to undo her illusion and make everyone else visible again, all walking up behind Phastos wearing sunglasses as he held the device that activated the Domo in his palm.

Phastos held his palm up and a loud rumble shook underground as rocks began to crumble and fall down. A ship slowly came into view and was rising slowly and steadily.

"The Domo," Karun muttered in amazement, holding his camera to record the scene.

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"A foreboding atmosphere fills the air," Kingo narrated in a whisper to the camera in Karun's hands as he and the others walked through one of the Domo's hallways, "An eerie stillness chokes our lungs,"

"What are you doing?" Phastos spoke up from the back, "You know you are creeping us out. You know that, right?"

An object burst close to him, and he yelled in fright, heading snapping around to look for the cause of it,  "Oh! Oh, God! Stay calm, T, please,"

Thena gave him a look as she removed her foot from a bag of chips that she had accidentally stepped on. 

Phastos chuckled out of embarrassment and reached out to grab the bag, "Chip. It's just chips," he laughed awkwardly.

"As you can see, being an Eternal does not preclude you from having human emotions," Kingo continued, "Such as cowardice."

The conversation stopped and everyone's gazes looked up at the sight of one of the main rooms in the Domo filled with countless of books and important artifacts of humankind, scattered all around in a huge pile of mess. Seated on the middle on a chair with book was Makkari, one of your closest friends.

"What has she done?" Phastos muttered in horror, "Is that—a sarcophagus in my lab?"

"This is Makkari. Or should I say Miss Havisham?" Kingo explained to the camera in Karun's hands. "None of us have seen her for centuries."

Makkari closed her book and turned to her friends, signing, "Ready to go home?"

"Hmm," Kingo hummed as you all gave her awkward smiles.

"So, you're gonna tell her, or should I?" you quirked your eyebrows at Kingo.

Makkari rested her head back on the head of the chair, frowning at you and Kingo with an exhausted look.

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As Phastos commenced to work on a new invention, you and Kingo began to fill in Makkari about what all had happened in the past few days; starting all the way from the Deivant attack in London where Sersi and Sprite were ambushed.

"So you mean," Makkari began to sign after you had finished explaining, "I've been waiting for centuries to go back to Olympia, and now you're telling me—it doesn't exist?"

"That," Kingo approved, signing, "And the world is ending,"

"At last my boredom is ending,"

"She does have a point, you know," you nodded vaguely, signing the words simultaneously.

Kingo gave you both exasperated looks, before he shook it off, "Have you seen my movies?" he asked the speedster.

"I don't have a DVD player," Makkari shrugged.

"DVD? It's all about streaming now," he explained, "You know, what you need is a Kindle. Do you know what that is? It's like a— You know, I just realized that if you don't know what an iPad is, there's almost no way to explain it,"

You had walked away from the two, leaving them to their own discussion as you checked out Makkari's collection of the artefacts, given that you too had a great interest in them.

You turned around when you heard footsteps and saw Druig headed towards you, holding something behind his back with a mischievous expression, causing you to frown at him.

"Weren't you looking for this?" Druig shook the Emerald tablet in front of you, and you reached for it. But he pulled away, just when your lips were a few centimeters away from his own due to your movement, "My beautiful, beautiful Y/N," his eyes darted down to your lips before resting on your eyes again as he leaned closer to you.

Not breaking eye contact, you snatched it from him with a grin, raising your chin at him. 

"Your welcome," Druig whispered, so that only your would be able to hear as you both gazed into each other's eyes flirtatiously.

"I'm sorry, what are we watching?" Phastos cocked his head forward, blinking at you both in bafflement.

"Can you stop?" Kingo shook his head with a whine, "Stop it, I hate it."

"Because this—I thought you guys—" the engineer gestured between you two, "Are you two back together?"

You whistled lowly, holding up the hand with the ring on it and wiggling your fingers to show. Druig rested an arm on your lower back, smirking at Phastos' aghast expression.

"No way!" Phastos mouth fell agape, "How come no one bothered to tell me about this?"

"Phastos," Druig interjected, "I need to control the mind of a Celestial,"

"Okay, get ready for it," Phastos maneuver the design of his new invention, which were nine identical gold rings floating in mid-air to close in all the missing parts and show the result.

"Bracelets?" Kingo deadpanned, unimpressed, "You made us bracelets?"

"So, here's a little Celestial 101," he bit back, "Celestials are the most powerful energy generators in the universe—"

Druig kept nudging your shoulder with his own as he stood behind you, bouncing back and forth on his heels and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear to get your attention. You turned to glance at him, unable to ignore his actions and he gave you a wink.

"—When Arishem made us, he imbued us with infinite cosmic energy to keep our bodies regenerating. The bracelets, in theory, shut down our regeneration process. And once that happens, our bodies accumulate extra cosmic energy,"

"What for?" Sersi questioned.

"Well, if the Deviants can absorb our energy," Phastos paused, "What if we can absorb each other's energy as well?" he commented, "If I can find a way to connect us all, one of us could become immensely powerful, pulling the accumulated energy from the rest, forming—" he clasped his hands together and the projection changed, showing nine identical figures and how a golden thread connected them together to form a bigger ring of light, "A UniMind,"

When no one reacted in the way he expected, he elaborated, " 'Uni' meaning 'one,' 'mind' meaning 'mind.'"

"Oh, no, we heard you the first time," Kingo nodded.

"Terrible name," Sprite deadpanned.

"We'll brainstorm— 'Brainstorm'!" the movie star gasped, "That's a way better name!"

"No, I invented it, so I'm calling it whatever I want," Phastos cut in.

Makkari waved her hand about, silencing the conversation and catching their attention, "So suppose Druig can, say—put Tiamut to sleep—Then what?"

"We find humans a new home on another planet," Sersi replied.

"Are we building a big ship, too?" Sprite raised her eyebrows, "Take a pair of each animal?"

"Well, you know what's never saved the planet? Your sarcasm," Phastos remarked.

"She's right, though," you spoke, "Space colonization could take decades,"

"It can happen quickly with our help," Sersi responded.

"What if we end up accidentally killing Tiamut?" Kingo thought out loud, "We could be responsible for billions of lives not being created across the universe. Boss, am I right?" he turned to Ikaris, who remained quiet throughout.

Ikaris shifted in his place when the topic was directed towards him and he looked up to see all eyes on him.

"Say something, Ikaris," Sprite urged, "You don't think we should be doing this,"

"Ajak chose Sersi to lead us. Sersi should decide," Ikaris replied simply.

"Forget who Ajak chose," she dismissed, "You're the strongest. You should be making this decision," but when he didn't answer she scoffed, "Fine. Just keep lying to yourself," she made her way out of the room.

"Sprite," Ikaris made to follow after her.

"Okay, this is not—" Phastos muttered.

"Ikaris," Kingo went after Ikaris.

"Don't run after him. Kingo, I— You guys,"

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