Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).

  Knowhere [Just after the Chitauri Invasion was foiled]

  –Taivan–

  Ah, as he had suspected. Tea made from the tears of those very elusive light bunnies was as refreshing as the rumours made them out to be. He might go eveep further and pare them with the tea made from the leaf from the Yggdrasil that Odin had traded to him in exge for some information.

  A, as sad as it was, he could only have this tea twice every cycle, even after making sure that the bunny rovided with hydration and pain every single day.

  Well, it wouldn’t be worthy of being in his colle if it wasn’t so…rare.

  Ah, he did so love rare things. Especially living beings, he loved to collect the st people of their species.

  That was why, even at the risk of angering the Bor and his son, Odin All-Father, he had kept a spe of the Dark Elves species, however low quality it might have been. It was a shame that he could not get his hands on one of the Light Elves, despite his best attempts.

  Would have really brought the set together but oh well, the universe doesn’t always work the way he wants it to.

  He did always love colleg rare species and The Mad Titan, in particur, was making it very easy for him to expand his colle. He scoffed in foolishness when he had heard about the Mad Titan and his supposed goal.

  Sure, the Mad Titan owerful, so powerful that it beggared belief, but apparently, his mind was not at the same advaage as his strength.

  His doe of defeating, usually by killing, the most powerful people of a species before proceeding to kill half of the remaining popution, which mostly prised the young, elderly, and non-batants, more often than not resulted in plete societal colpse.

  That same societal disade the very species easy pigs for svers, human traffickers, meraries, and more. He hadn't bothered to calcute it but he had a standing tract with the seedier parts of the Ravagers t him anybody who they thought was the st remaining of their species, as he was best suited to “protect” them.

  So far, he had received over 20 different st of their kind spes and while he detested the stupidity with which the Mad Titan wasted the vast resources he had at his hand, he could not really argue with the results. Not the results that the mad Titan was looking for, though.

  The fool refused to see reason about the truth of life in the universe. He had been around in the universe for a long time ae his ck of extraordinary powers, he was an immortal.

  Where beings like Odin shone like a bright star but for a very short time, he was a dull light but it went on for forever, without stopping, ever. He had all the time in the world and while his colle had e ter, he had been obsessed with the universe and its position for a long time.

  Ever since he came ience, by the hands of those pesky Celestials no less, he had been travelling as far as he could. He had observed life for millions of years and while life was wonderful with its facet of being different every time he shifted his attention away from it, it had something in on.

  Life, se life, in particur, could ay still. It was at the very core of their essence, movement. There was a reason that most life forms could be safely decred dead if they were to stop moving for aended period of time.

  That same movemeo a struggle, which led to ambitions, which led to strife, which led to wars, which eventually led to something that every se species had in on.

  Murder.

  Yes, every single se life form in the universe would eventually go on to gain capacity for violence, so much so that they would either murder other species, turning expansionists or try and kill their brethren, turning into genocidal monsters.

  These tendencies were very hard to suppress yet suppressing them, either temporarily or just aiming the instincts at something else was very necessary, fress. Any tangible progress made by any species was made only if the species was in a period of peace between violence or rather, preparing for extreme violeh another race.

  What the Mad Titan did was extremely terproductive, at least to someone like him who khe ins and outs of the observable universe. He went around, culling poputions and then leaving immediately after, on to the unfortunate species that catches his attention, leaving the survivors of the current species to flounder about, setting them back siderably in the small amount ress they had made.

  Because the Mad Titan never went after the established pyers. No, he never once went after the Kree, Skrulls, Sn, or Xandarians, the less said about the species of the Nine Realms, the better. He only went after the species that he could defeat with ease.

  That was hypocrisy right there a…

  What did he care? He shrugged a about enjoying his tea. After all, he would not get this for another cycle since he had to send the rest of it to his fellow Elder, the Grandmaster who, for some reason, had chosen to live on Sakaar of all pces.

  The ic garbage dump was his choice of residend while he did not care o about what happeo that opportunistic bastard, they, as fellow Immortals, had some image to maintain and the Grandmaster was bringing his image down!

  “Calm. CALM,” He muttered to himself, gulping down the rest of the tea.

  “a. this,” He snapped his finger after setting the cup down oable and going back to his office, where he could check upoure deliveries of multiple fine spes he was going to receive. Unfortunately, they found oh his family and he had to choose between having a young spe, which could grow up in the colle and would be more pliant, or having a fully grown spe that had grown in its natural habitat.

  In the end, he had chosen the young oo be added to his colle and as a result, the meraries had to gas the other two.

  Well, they did demand more pensation for the appareal trauma but for someone as long-lived as him, money was not an object so he had approved the request. It was better to maintaiionship with this fa of the Ravagers sihey were the only ones who took his retrieval requests, the others being far too uptight to accept his money.

  He whistled a jaunty tuhat he had picked up from accessing the Earthen Midgard as he made his way to his office. The path he had taken overlooked most of his colle in all its glory, from the subterranean va world to the freezing cold ice world to the sea world to the tropic world, he saw it all on his way to his grand office.

  It was by design, obviously. After all, he prided himself on his colle and while only a select few would ever get the ce to feast their eyes on his colle, he loved to look over his colle every single day.

  After all, he had built every si of it himself, bit by bit, until finally, it reached the level it has now, surpassing all other colles in the known universe. He was now firmly known as the Collector and he prided himself oing that title.

  He may have had a hand in making sure that nobody had a colle that came close to his. In the early times, he had to quietly dispose of multiple aristocrats of superpowers of the gaxy but that was then and this was now.

  After admiring his colle and himself foing to great lengths to maintain the colle, he finally arrived at his office, situated at the ter of the floatiial head that was known as Knowhere.

  Holy, he did not know who or what was strong enough to sever a Celestial’s head from its body but he had checked to see if any other Celestial could y cim to the head but after thousands of cycles of nobody even ing close, he had cimed it as his base of operations, even going so far as to install his preuseum in it.

  It helped that the celestial anic matter was so powerful, even after it had been dead for so long, it geed more than enough power to power his museum as well as his other defense measures. The leftanic matter was an added bonus as well.

  He had thought that it was just biological waste since he khat nobody in the universe could e close to uandiials and their biology so he was just going to mi for all its worth and sell it to some rich races.

  He khat the Sn and the Kree held delusions of grandeur when it came to advang their respective races biologically and if he had dahe juicy meat that was Celestial bio matter in front of them, they would have sold half their soul to get that from him.

  But that was before he found the miraculous properties of the fluids. That was a mistake that one of his earlier attendants had made. She was someone from a race of natural telekiibsp;

  She was the stro of them all and had been btantly sold off by the rulers of their race to the highest bidder as experimental material. He had snatched her off them because he had a need of an attendant and also eaihat only a soul retly thrown into despair could provide.

  She was already injured from the ordeal when she was captured, losing one of her limbs, not that it reduced her capacity to work for him in any way. She actually sidered him her savior at the time and worked wholeheartedly for him, being responsible for a signifit portion of the museum being installed properly.

  He might be immortal but that did e with its own pros and s. being that time just bleogether, after a while. He had periods where he had goo brainst sessions and once he came back to his senses, he had found that multiple cycles had passed without him being aware of it.

  So he had hired her, someone whose race was known for having exceptional mental as well as physical characteristics, making them a rare odity in the bck market, owing to their excellent strength as well as their non-interference policy when it came to other warring civilisations.

  Their race was of the opinion that the universe was big enough for all of them and they had o fight for something as inane as a territory when the universe was ever expanding. So, no other superpower of that time bothered them as well, putting the topi the back burner until their enemies were defeated.

  She was doing some work on one of the early iterations of the pods that housed most of his colle these days when she slipped and instead of saving herself, she prioritised the pod, ending up falling into a vat of celestial biofluid.

  It was not as if he had not tested that fluid. It was just that any species it came into tact with, it grew like a cer, abs matter and energy, sug anybody dry which forced him to torch everything down to ash and even thehe ash in a tightly locked tainer. He still had some of those tainers.

  But what happehat day was pletely out of his expectations. He had written that woman off whe of liquid began bubbling outwards. He had already initiated the quarantine protocols and was sitting out of the area, safely looking at the vat, curious to see what was happening when the woman, naked as the day she must have been born, slowly floated out of the vat of celestial fluid.

  His eyes had gained i in them as he saw that her body was healed of all the damage that had been inflicted on her during the experimentation and the fight where she was defeated and given to the meraries before that.

  She too looked at her hand in curiosity and then looked straight at him and after seeing the quarantine protocol arouhat she khe existence of, simply….walked out of it.

  Yeah, the woman simply walked out of the quarantine protocol by walking into the walls as if they simply did.

  Somehow, the celestial fluid not only healed the damage doo her body, it also enhanced her powers, so much so that she had bee the stro spe he had on hand. The urge to just store her in one of the pods had been strong but he khat her pce was more in managing her burgeoning colle and not being a part of it.

  His decision roven correct when the girl helped him gather many, many other unique spes, with seeming ease, all until she died. He had tried to e her but apparently, she was a unique existehat was made even more unique by the vat of celestial biofluid.

  He had tried the fluid with thousands of other spes of different species, willingly and unwillingly. The result had been somewhat disheartening.

  The celestial fluid didn’t work on everyone. No, one had to be exceptionally strong, both of mind and body, before he could be exposed to the biofluid. Ordinary members simply had their bodies eaten from i from the cells. Only the exceptionally strong members of their respective species had any ce of successfully assimiting the lifeblood of the stro members of the universe to ever exist.

  He had the idea of using it on himself but he liked himself the way he was and who knows if there was a ce of it ruining his handsome face. He would have no pce to redress his grievances.

  So, he kept the fluid stored and only gave it out occasionally, at exorbitant prices, only to exceptionally iial figures of the gaxy, like Odin AllFather after he had banished his eldest daughter aly, the Supreme Intelligence of Kree.

  He shook his head to clear his thoughts as he sat on his fortable chair, also one of a kind, built by the Dwarves of Nidavellir in exge for resg one of their kidnapped members. It was made from a metal that was only used iro of ons that the Dwarves ever built, Uru.

  He had just never expected to find something very iing on his puter the mome on his chair in the office.

  Red arms began bring as a feed opened up in front of him, showing an energy storm of untold proportions brewing right outside Knowhere. While it was a bustling trade front at the moment, he trolled every single aspect of Knowhere and as such, it was his prerogative to send someoo check that out.

  Anybody else wouldn't have the guts to check it out anyway, sidering the sheer energy of that storm. The only reason he was sending something to check it out was because of the energy signature of that energy storm. It somehow had energy from the Space Stone and Mind Stone in it.

  Energies from two Infinity Stones arriving right outside his doorstep? Well, this was going to be a very iing day.

  He leaned ahead as he watched the feed from the unmanned drone he had sent ahead, no way he would risk his image for something as dangerous as this. He was immortal in every way that mattered but Infinity Stones rarely if ever followed tradition. They were known for bending and breaking every w of the universe, after all.

  The drone came as close as it could before it was at risk of being damaged beyond repair. No amount of shielding would save it from an infinity Stone, after all.

  He could see that the energy storm was only temporary and it had arrived from somewhere else, most likely the influence of the Space Stone, in a wormhole that had long since closed.

  The dro closer as the storm was subsiding, taking any and all readings it could. The closer it went, the clearer the picture became.

  His eyes widened as he realised that in the middle of that energy storm, was a…human?

  Yeah, that looked like a human, alright. A dying, bleeding human but still a human.

  A human that somehow arrived coed in an energy storm posed of the energies from not o TWO Infinity Stones? And he survived, albeit barely.

  Well, things just got very iing, something of a rarity in his long life, he thought to himself as the drone carefully took the human, or what was left of him, into the ste bay and scurried back to his personal hangar.

  “a, prepare the Primed C-fluid for healing. We have a very special guest visiting us,” He pressed a button and ordered his personal attendant.

  “Yes, sir,” She squeaked as he leaned bato his chair, feelied for some reason, after a very long time.

  Ah, he missed this feeling. The st time he felt this thrill was when he iated with the All-Father, unheeding of the risk of being smote on the spot using the Space Stohat he had in his possession, and was willing to use it on his enemies, as was evident by his previous war quests.

  Word t - 3019

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