From Galactus, Sean gleaned a trove of ancient secrets. He learned of the Celestials who had once held dominion over the universe, beings who had wielded the Power Stone itself, who could annihilate worlds or seed new civilizations on a whim.
They had stood at the absolute apex of evolution...
Each Celestial was immense, towering over two thousand feet tall, encased from head to toe in impenetrable armor. No one knew what lay beneath.
Knowhere, the mining colony and resource hub that served as Earth's bridgehead into the wider cosmos, was itself built inside the severed head of a dead Celestial.
And yet, that cosmic superpower had eventually vanished without a trace. The three great empires had risen swiftly to fill the vacuum, and the Celestials had become little more than ancient history buried beneath the dust of history.
According to Galactus, the Celestials had been systematically slaughtered. A terrifying race from another universe, a realm beyond this one, had hunted them down and exterminated them. Not just their lives, but their very traces in existence had been erased.
Even Galactus, one of the five primordial cosmic entities, spoke of this with a rare note of gravity and unease. That extradimensional race called themselves the Beyonders. They claimed to transcend all things, to be the creators and destroyers of all matter. Their power was, by any measure, unfathomable.
This put Sean on high alert. Thanos was actively digging into this long-buried chapter of cosmic history. Whatever the Mad Titan was planning, it was clearly something colossal.
Sean didn't overstay his welcome. The Devourer's mood was already foul, his feeding had been interrupted, and on top of that, his daughter Gali was now unexpectedly pregnant. The fact that he'd managed to hold a civil conversation with Sean at all was probably pushing the limits.
Everyone knew how fathers-in-law looked at their daughters' suitors. The longer Sean lingered, the greater the chance Galactus might suddenly decide to smash his head in after all.
But before he left, he made sure to present his future father-in-law with a carefully chosen gift.
"Ahem... As Galacta's father, I couldn't very well show up for the first time without bringing something..." Sean smiled brightly and rattled off a set of coordinates. With earnest sincerity, he added, "This is an ancient planet that has developed a consciousness of its own. It is full of vitality and packed with nutritional value. I hope you enjoy it." {T/N: Did bro just 🙆🏻♂️...}
Galactus, who had been only half-listening, perked up at this. A faint gleam lit his eyes.
He nodded with an air of reluctant concession, accepting the offering, "You have my… appreciation."
A vitality-rich living planet was, after all, a genuinely rare gift. It nudged Sean's favorability rating from negative territory back toward something approaching positive.
As Sean departed with Gali, Galactus turned his attention elsewhere. The next moment, Silver Surfer, who had lost his board and suffered a brutal beating, materialized instantly within the vast ship.
"Summon Stardust, Firelord, and Tyrant," the Galactus commanded, "A living planet, conscious and brimming with energy… this should suffice to alleviate my hunger."
The Silver Surfer knelt and bowed his head in assent...
~~~
"...And that is how I reached an understanding with Galactus." Sean recounted, "He was deeply moved by my philosophy of love and peace. He decided to leave the Milky Way and spend some time reflecting on all the death and destruction he's caused."
They had gathered on the rooftop terrace of Baxter Tower. With the global crisis averted as abruptly as it had begun, Reed and Susan's wedding was back on schedule.
This was the night before the wedding. There was no bachelor party this time. Instead, the whole group had assembled under the open sky, the stars glittering overhead, the city below a sprawling sea of headlights and lit windows.
Humans were resilient. A catastrophe that had shaken the entire world had passed, and life was already pressing forward without a pause...
"You're telling me that a world-devouring, civilization-obliterating cosmic horror was persuaded by your 'love and peace' speech?" Tony asked flatly, his face a monument to disbelief.
But since Sean was sticking stubbornly to the story, there wasn't much Tony could do about it.
"Why don't you go check on Pepper?" Sean bumped Tony with his shoulder, "She's been waiting for you all evening. Time to prove the courage of a Stark man."
Pepper had been hovering near Susan the entire gathering.
"You are an infuriatingly effective talker," Tony grumbled.
He rose with a sigh and made his way toward Pepper. The two of them retreated to a quiet corner of the terrace, heads bent low in private conversation.
Watching Stark's uncharacteristically solemn expression, Sean figured it was only a matter of time before the man followed Reed into the grave of matrimony.
Sean surveyed the warm, easy gathering. The Fantastic Four basked in each other's company. Tony and Pepper off to the side. On Sean's right sat Wanda in a backless evening gown.
On his other side was Gali with cheeks stuffed full of fruit, and beside her, Mindy shooting envious glances at the girl who never gained a pound.
Jean Grey sat with her long legs crossed, nursing a glass of champagne and watching Sean with an expression of amused curiosity. Beside her was a young woman named Lorna Dane, Magneto's daughter, whom Bobby Drake had brought to the mutant academy some time ago.
Sean sat at the center of it all, swirling his glass. An unexpected wave of contentment washed over him.
Soon, Nebula would deliver Gamora to Earth. Once he had the location of the final stone, the Infinity Gauntlet would be complete.
As for Thanos's true objective, Sean had already dispatched John to track down the Black Order. Sooner or later, they would find the Mad Titan.
Ever since Thanos had been routed and lost his shot at the stones, the roles of hunter and hunted had reversed.
'It's time to give the Mad Titan a hunt to remember.' A faint smirk curved Sean's lips.
When Nebula finally tracked down Gamora, the so-called 'Guardians of the Galaxy', that band of misfits who had somehow stumbled back together, were in the middle of being chased by the Sovereign's fleet.
They had been improbably rescued by a man named Ego who was piloting a ship of his own. The same man who had obliterated the entire Sovereign armada with a casual wave of his hand claimed to be Star-Lord's father.
Nebula had tailed them all the way to a beautiful, remote world, where she'd finally extracted her sister Gamora.
This was also how Sean knew Ego's exact coordinates.
Peter Quill, raised by Ravagers, was technically a demigod. Not quite on Gali's level, but he carried half the bloodline of a Celestial within him.
His father, Ego, was a living planet, a world that had developed consciousness. He was also, in truth, a member of the Celestial race. Presumably too young and insignificant at the time to be noticed during the great slaughter.
In the eons since, Ego had been cultivating extensions of himself and dispersing them across countless worlds. When activated, these extensions would consume and overwrite their host planets, merging everything into Ego's own being. His ultimate goal was to cover the entire universe.
Sean had to admit... It was a creative plan. And if Ego hadn't suffered that inexplicable lapse in judgment; confessing directly to Quill that he had killed his mother, the plan might even have worked.
With a newborn Celestial providing the energy, Ego could have triggered the expansion and transformed into something entirely new.
"But as things stand now..." Sean's eyes glinted.
With four Heralds of Galactus plus the Devourer of Worlds himself, one of the five primordial entities, Ego wouldn't be doing much of anything except getting eaten.
"As for the rest of the Guardians... well. Best of luck to them."
After all, Sean had somehow ended up with a father-in-law who considered planets to be light snacks...