This work is a piece of fiction. While inspired by real events, cultures, and practices in human history, the story blends factual history with fictional characters, dramatizations, and creative interpretation.
It is not intended to promote, glorify, or encourage any illegal activities, substance use, or harmful behavior. All depictions of sensitive topics are included solely for narrative and historical context.
For the effects of the story, all characters are to be considered above the majority age.
Reader discretion is advised.
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Earth-199999.
5 BE (Before Emergence) 2018 CE (Current Era).
It had been a little over six months since Asgard's fall. News of this magnitude should have made rounds in all sectors of the quadrant that mattered by now. That, however, was not what happened.
Prior to the fall of Asgard, Xandar's capital was razed to the ground by the Mad Titan.
The most infamous monster stirred; that was all the news that mattered.
For eras, Thanos had followed a simple and repetitive pattern. Step one: listen to the grapevine for news of collapsing societies due to overpopulation. Step two: enlighten them with the most obvious solution. Step three: they foolishly decline; how dare they! Step four: remove half of them from the equation; all for the greater good.
Naturally, after Thanos had done them such a service, to bless more with his enlightenment, it was only logical that he took the riches of the half that was erased. They were no more. Why would they need it anyway?
"This was terribly executed," Aragorn commented while observing the half of Xandar that burned.
'My Love, if you think about it, even from our twisted perception, the Mad Titan was never in the correct state of mind to plan the 'appropriate' way to execute his population control,' Death replied in his mind.
This was the Death that existed in the Realm of Death, not the one that was slaving away in mastering the absurd spell for conceptual [Separation].
"In a way, he went right about the parts that mattered to his delusional objective," Aragorn commented. "How's Loki's soul, by the way?"
'Even for one as twisted, he knows that collecting resources to fund his delusion is of utmost importance,' Death replied. 'Regarding the godling's soul... Do you really intend to keep it?'
"Ehmmm... Not really, but it shone so with such uniqueness for a moment that I believe I owe it to at least try to fix it," Aragorn replied. "Why? Is there something wrong with it?"
'Based on how My Love refers to 'it', I think you understand,' Death said.
"Soul, Body, and Mind are connected intrinsically," Aragorn explained. "Burning one's spirit does irreparable damage to the soul in the same way that bodily torture can twist the mind. Before I shuttled his soul to you, I saw that there was little of 'Loki' to it."
'Officially, there's nothing of Loki to it,' Death corrected him. 'The soul memories were so cleansed that it doesn't need to go through a cycle of purification before reincarnation.'
"Oh, so the damage was more extensive than I saw?" Aragorn asked.
'I think the way you see souls is different from mine,' Death explained. 'I operate within the 'rulebook', you don't. Maybe you'll have a better chance of recovering the corrupted data than I.'
"I hadn't thought of that... Maybe, I do have a different way of seeing souls," Aragorn pondered out loud.
'How would you have done it, My Love?' Death asked.
"Wipe half of the population or solve the resources crisis Thanos is fighting?" Aragorn asked.
'Both,' Death said.
"For starters, I don't think I would have acted to wipe half of the population," Aragorn said. "The populace grows out of control, a war for resources breaks out, many die to starvation, many to the war, many during the anarchy that follows, and many for other various reasons, until, at the end, the population autoregulates itself. This is the truth we know, isn't it?"
'I never understood why this Thanos couldn't see that,' Death confessed. 'From a logical stance, I understand easily the ones that simp after me.'
"I don't like them, but yes," Aragorn snarled. "And about the resources crisis... There are multiple ways: a central control regulating all, a staged war to regulate the population, lowering the fertility rate, and extending the average lifespan. I can think of many; however, all of them require a considerable investment of time and dedication. Thanos' snap is the easiest. What about you, Noona?"
Aragorn pointed at the burning half of Xandar with his tail, used his energy control, and pulled the purple flames of [Power] towards himself.
As if a vacuum cleaner had been set on a potassium chloride fire, the purple flames formed massive fire tornadoes toward deep space and converged on Aragorn's tail blade.
The scant few who survived the Power Stone couldn't comprehend what happened. The surviving half of Xandar, on the other hand, with their advanced technology, could. Not entirely, though, they understood the cause and effect, but they had not the barest idea of how Aragorn was controlling the primordial force.
'Reality needs no fixing, especially not from mortals who have not a clue of the larger truths,' Death replied.
"I can understand that," Aragorn nodded. "But, from all Thanoses, I tolerate this type the better."
'~Fufufufufu!'
The purple flames concentrated at the tip of his blade before being absorbed.
Aragorn was effectively doing damage control.
After the changes brought about by Aragorn's presence in Earth-199999, Thanos' first Infinity Gem was not [Power] but [Space], Thanos was effective and efficient, with the power of space in his gauntlet, and the location of most of the stones already divinated, he moved for what he believed he lacked the most: [Power].
The Guardians of the Galaxy had made a mess big enough in Xandar when they ended The Accusser that it was impossible for Thanos not to catch wind of the Power Stone's involvement.
Aragorn, after claiming Hela's soul and witnessing the end of Asgard/Helheim, teleported to Xandar after the Mad Titan.
Not awaiting thanks nor providing more help than absolutely necessary, Aragorn departed from Xandar. His next destination was Nowhere.
Nowhere was on fire. It had fallen just as quickly, if not faster, than Xandar.
Smoke escaped the tight gravitational field around the head and dispersed into the vacuum. Sporadic flames lit the head as the electric grid of a city does at night.
Aragorn observed in contemplation at the burning head before slowly drifting inside. As he entered, a wave of red reality warping seamlessly transformed the head into what it was shortly before his arrival.
"It's strange," Aragron spoke out loud. Thanos tensed. "Being inside the head of your coworker is strange no matter what."
Aragorn was not hiding his presence, nor was he making an attempt at stealth. Due to the blue gem passively glowing in Thanos' gauntlet, there was no way to hide from him while existing inside the space-time mesh in the present.
He could observe the event from the past or future, and without the Time Stone, Thanos wouldn't know about it; however, there was no need for that. Aragron was certain Thanos knew of his existence.
Thanos turned toward Aragorn as he flew in slowly with no rush or care for his surroundings. "It isn't a surprise that you are connected to the gardeners, Aragorn."
"If they are gardeners, I'm plague control," Aragron explained before coming to a stop a few feet away from the purple titan. He crossed his legs and hovered high enough to meet Thanos eye-to-eye.
"I admire you," Thanos said.
"Oh? Why? Is it because I've been keeping Terra's population under control for ages?" Aragorn asked.
"Admirable as that is, that's not the reason," Thanos said. He clenched his fist, and reality distorted around them. Instead of Knowhere, they now stood in the vastness of space; Imperial Space.
"Ah, the Imperium, you discovered it," Aragorn said with a faint semblance of surprise in his voice. "I'm sure I've kept it properly hidden. How curious that you found it. It must have been something recent, though, given that you're here."
"After Stark thwarted my last attempt, Terra gained my interest," Thanos explained.
"Mmmm, that makes some sense; however, how did you find the Imperium?" Aragorn asked.
Thanos didn't reply with words; he flexed the Reality Stone, and the battered body of The Collector appeared momentarily.
"Ah, indeed, Taneleer Tivan is one of the few, if not the only one, who knew of the Imperium," Aragorn nodded.
"The Grandmaster also had much to tell about you," Thanos added, his eyes on the superb sight of the Imperium.
"En Dwi Gast, I see," Aragorn accepted it easily. "The Elders of the Universe are a troublesome bunch, I bet the others also know some surface knowledge about me and mine."
Aragorn also appeared lost in the sight of the Imperium, specifically on The Ark and its satellite planets and stars.
"Are you here to stop me?" Thanos asked.
"Oh?" Aragorn voiced out. He turned towards him with interest. "Three Infinity Stones and you don't feel confident?"
"After I found the existence of this," he said while observing The Ark, "some research on you was due. The Allfather, the Ancient One, and Malekith, these were figures I kept track of before enacting my plan."
"I see, but you should be confident in your power," Aragorn encouraged him like a friend who wants to see you screw up for the shits and giggles. "None of these had more than one gem at a time."
"You were there when these were born," he gestured to the Infinity Gems, "right?"
"So you have even seen the North Scale," Aragorn said, not entirely surprised. "How about I don't interfere, and only when you have all of the ingots of creation, I'll step in?"
"... Why?" Thanos asked. "Do you support my endeavor?"
"No, not really," Aragron shrugged. "It's just that, whether you succeed or not, you'll lose. So why not take you, the future wielder of all Infinity Stones, for a ride and test what an Infinity Wielder is capable of?"
"Divination?" Thanos asked with an undertone of defiance and mockery. "Time, Space, Power, Souls, Minds, and Reality will be at the reach of a snap. Why would I care for the divination of the future when, at that point, the future would be whatever I wanted it to be?"
"Then you don't have anything to fear, do you?" Aragorn said, almost teasingly. "So, let's follow the path that you like best... The path of inevitability.
"You'll gain all the Infinity Gems, snap your fingers, then I'll step in and... the inevitable end shall be reached," Aragorn said.
"Are you vying for the stones after I collect them?" Thanos surmised.
"No, no, no," Aragorn quickly dismissed the idea. "The stones are incompatible with me. In fact, I can't even touch them without undoing Reality. Wanna see?" Aragorn reached teasingly towards the stones.
Thanos pulled back instinctively. The moment Aragorn had reached for the stones, he had felt an existential shiver down his spine.
"See?" Aragron smiled widely. "You can think of it as the appreciation of one pest management specialist to another. Or you can think of me as a foolish dragon who arrogantly believed his own divination over the certainty and inevitability of a wielder of the Infinity Stones."
"Foolishness would be to decline," Thanos agreed.
"Excellent, your sweet green bean is arriving soon, so I'll step out for a moment," Aragorn smiled. There was something different about this smile, though. Was it sadism? Coldness? Thanos couldn't find the words for it, but, like the Cheshire cat, Aragorn turned to smoke, leaving behind only his canine smile before fully disappearing.
Something was unsettling about the interaction, something Thanos couldn't truly put his finger on.
Thanos had little time to dwell on it because, as Aragorn had said, Gamora was approaching. A simple flex of his gauntlet later, Nowhere was back in the picture, and the stage had been set again.
Maybe, if he had been given more time to think about it, Thanos would have figured out that there was nothing to gain for Aragorn in interacting with him. Whether he talked to him or not, Aragorn was going to face him after he had collected all the stones, so why did he bother with it at all?
'Was it deviating again?' Death asked.
Aragorn had stepped out of the space-time mesh, but that was not an obstacle for him to observe and track Thanos.
"Yes, Noona," Aragorn affirmed. "After taking Gamora and acquiring the Soul Gem, he would have used it to gauge the status of the souls of our Therions and Duskari.
"The combination of [Power], [Reality], [Space], and [Soul] would have allowed him to understand how badly matched up he was. Then, he would have paused his plan, and I couldn't have that. I want to be done with this Earth as soon as possible," Aragorn explained.
'So you reassured him,' Death concluded in understanding.
"I gave him the false pretense that I was a fool who trusted his prophetic vision over the impasse that the Infinity Gems meant," Aragorn added.
'~Fufufu, I enjoy seeing the 'child of destiny' being led by the nose,' Death chuckled.
While these two talked and observed the father-daughter reunion, with a dab of boyfriend meets father-in-law, Thanos prepared to warp away with Gamora hostage.
Aragorn teleported to Vormir and appeared next to his previous best friend.
"Aragorn, Progeny of the Outside," Schmidt greeted him.
"Is that like a disclosure? Something you have to say when you meet a new guest?" Aragorn asked. "Like when they say that the call is being recorded?"
"... It's been a while, Lord Aragorn," Schmidt said, ignoring the question.
"Ah, it hurts my heart, you know?" Aragorn put on an expression of mock hurt.
Schmidt knew he would regret asking, but he did anyway. "What does, my Lord?"
"This distance," Aragorn gestured to the metaphorical distance between them, "you used to cuddle in my touch. I was the light in your eyes, the flufff. Left and right hands. The power besties. Besto friendos-Ah! How it pains me!"
"... My Lord, is there anything I can do for you?" Schmidt asked.
"..." Aragorn stopped his one-dragon act and turned serious, or listless. "Just act as if I did not exist," Aragorn commanded before disappearing.
"...?" Unlike Thanos, Schmidt pondered on why he appeared in front of him, but he did not question it out loud; he was too afraid of doing so.
'Should I be jealous?' Death asked.
"No, don't worry about it, Noona," Aragorn said. "I was simply searching for any remnants of my love on him. I found none. I've got to admire the Soul Stone's healing/cleansing properties."
'Hmmmmmmmmmm.'
"I swear. I'll kill him soon anyway, so you'll understand that I mean it."
'Well, no. I don't doubt your dislike for his soul, I just don't like you giving the toy attention you could turn to me.'
"I always have at least one eye on you, Noona. My love for you is conceptual."
'~Hehehe. You have a way of saying the cheesiest things, My Love.'
Some time later, Thanos, with Gamora hostage, arrived.
"Welcome, Thanos, son of Alars... Gamora, daughter of Thanos." Schmidt welcomed them with his disclosure.
"You know us?" Thanos asked.
"It's my course to know all who journey here," Schmidt explained.
|Hey, Soul.| Aragorn spoke with his soul to the Soul Stone.
|...?|
|Let's make a deal.|
|...?|
|I'll take the next soul you're offered in exchange for one million souls.|
|...|
|Not enough?|
|... X|
|I can do the talking, or I can do the taking. Choose.|
|... #!|
|Stop kvetching. You think all souls are yours? All souls that I want are M̵̨̠̪͉̘̹̥̺̥͇̪̩̦͕̊̓̈́͌̿̆̅͒̇̋̎̈́̆̆͆̈́͝͝͠I̸̛̛̛̟̊̆̏̿́͋͗̃͊̏̾́͊͗̄̒͊́͆͌͂̒̃̉̈́̽͋̅͆̏̉̐̍̚̕͝N̸̟̙̮̳͙̬̦͇̬̈́̒́̋̾̿̽̀̿͒̍̅͘̚Ȩ̵̡̛̛̣̳̳̬̹̣̤̤͕̣̖̤͖͛̀̋͌͛̓̊́̊̈͑̊̉͆͊̉̂̇̐̄̏̈́͋͛̿̓̿̓̽̏̌̕͘͝͝ͅ!̷̛̭̥̜͍̖̻͉̔͐̿̾̂́̑͑̑̉̈́̚ Stand in my way and I'll disconnect you from Reality.| {A/N: Mine!}
|... O|
|Good Soul.|
"To ensure that whoever possesses it... understands its power... the stone demands a sacrifice."
"Of what?"
"In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love... A soul... for a Soul."
And Gamora, that ignorant dufus, mockingly laughed at that.
Aragorn felt it all. The vindication, the mocking joy, the disgust, the anger, and then, the palette switched, disbelief, anger, sadness, even some concealed joy, despair, greater despair, and then...
"I'm sorry, little one."
|Here, a million souls.|
Vormir pulsed.
|Would you like another million for Schmidt?|
|...|
|Thanos will be your last wielder; you won't need a custodian anymore.|
|... O|
|Excellent! Here you go, another million souls.|
Vormir pulsed again, and this time Thanos was spatially warped to the sandy plains of the planet.
Aragorn accepted Gamora's soul and warped to him her splattered body. With his tail wrapped around one of her broken limbs, he used his biokinesis to mend her body. While he was repairing Gamora's body, he reappeared near Schmidt.
"... My Lord," Schmidt greeted with a somewhat dazed expression. Souls were normally not visible, but he, as Soul's custodian, was an exception. Hence, seeing Gamora's soul in Aragorn's hand was a mild surprise to him. It would have been shocking, had it not been for his experience and knowledge about 'Akila'.
Aragorn, though, didn't spare him the courtesy of a reply. He made a lazy, swiping motion with one of his claws forward, and Schmidt was split horizontally.
Schmidt hadn't begun to process what happened when crimson, shadowy hands with sharp claws reached from the shadows and pierced into the core of his body.
"UGH—"
He made an attempt at an anguished wail, but the hands extracted his soul and dragged it down the shadows.
"Know that I'm being this petty not because you were exceptionally evil, but because you rejected my friendship and love, and that hurt me," Aragorn said just before the shadow path to Hell closed.
'How petty... I'm horny.'
"Noona, you abet the most unhealthy behaviors in me," Aragorn said. He was exasperated but equally madly in love. Yes, he was just as unhealthy as she was.
Aragorn rejoined soul and body. The difference between alive and dead can be paper-thin when you have the right skillset.
Gamora gasped, her heart pumped blood, her synapses fired, her eyelids flickered, and she came back to life. Unconscious, but alive.
His tail swayed, and Gamora was warped away from Vormir. Aragorn cast a glance at the awakening titan before he warped towards Titan.
Titan was a ruined world. Or maybe, calling it that simply because the surface was ruined for intelligent life could be unjustified. A planet is more than just its biosphere; in fact, it represents 0.00000002% of its total mass.
But when over 80% of the planet's surface is covered with the ruins of the Titan civilization, the description of a 'Ruined' planet does it justice.
This was meant to be Thanos and Maw's meeting point; however, Maw had become one of the many frozen corpses in the vacuum of space.
When Aragorn appeared, he found Strange posing at the top of the stairs of what once was a splendorous building.
"..."
"..."
The two exchanged silent gazes until Strange shivered with flashbacks.
"Hello, Strange," Aragorn greeted nonchalantly.
"What are you doing here, Mr. Abner?" A young voice came from above.
"Peter Parker, I'm sure this is a school day. The real question is, what are you doing here?" Aragorn asked.
"Please don't tell Aunt May!" Peter pleaded.
"Is that The Abner I'm thinking about?!" A shrill came from behind another piece of ruin.
"Peter Quill, I'm a fan of what you did to Ego," Aragorn said.
"He knows me!" Quill shrilled.
"Abner, you being here," Stark's voice came from another direction, "this can't be good."
"Stark, you crashlanded on a ruined planet after trying to stop the kidnapping of a sorcerer you just met. Now you're waiting on an ambush to try to get one over one of the most dangerous mortals currently alive," Aragorn talked with a certain joy to his voice. "Is any of this 'good'? How bad can things get?"
"..." Stark didn't have an answer for it.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Drax laughed hard.
"HUAHAHAHAHA!" Mantis joined him.
"These two are a delight, aren't they?" Aragorn asked with a chuckle. The show of emotions made Stark shiver.
"No, no, no, no, this can't be good!" Stark exclaimed. "Get ready! Don't screw it up! Abner being here is nothing but trouble, even more trouble! Hold your positions and be ready for even the moon to fall on us!"
Aragorn ignored the panicking Avenger and turned back to Strange, who had finally gotten over the flashbacks.
"He is coming, isn't he?" Strange asked.
"Didn't you see him coming when you were peering into the future with the Time Stone?" Aragorn asked.
"... Thank you," Strange said.
"Uhmm, there are many things you should be thankful for. Which one are you referring to?" Aragron asked.
"For what you'll do for us," Strange said.
"Ugh, yuck," Aragorn gagged. "I prefer you irreverent and somewhat traumatized by my training."
Strange didn't continue with his thanks, but he understood that Aragorn had accepted them.
"Good luck," Aragorn said to all before disappearing.
'My Love, you're showing some serious stalking behavior this day.'
"Aren't I always on stalking behavior with you, Noona?"
'Maybe.'
Seconds later, Thanos arrived on Titan.
This time, however, there was no talking, no clash of wills. The moment Thanos warped and he walked forward towards Strange, the moment he came into position, the ground blew up, Stark dropped a building on him, and Strange cast as many of the nasty spells Aragorn had taught him as possible.
The purple of [Power] exploded, yet Thanos was not without a scratch. In another reality, Thanos might have been untouchable with this many stones at hand.
This reality was different. Just to drag Strange to Titan, Thanos had to send a tenth of his army with Maw. Stark was a different Iron Man, Strange was a different Sorcerer Supreme, Wong was a different Master Sorcerer/Sorcerer Supreme, Peter Parker was a different Spider-Man, and humanity was a different humanity.
After the fight of New York, with how advanced humanity was and the many learning tools available in the Libralisk, they had taken the Chitauri tech and made it theirs.
So, Thanos was not met with an easy fight.
Strange's spells were beyond nasty, the type of aberrations to humanity that only a doctor and a sorcerer could cook.
Coughing up blood, the Mad Titan experienced a magical collapse of his immunologic system the likes of which AIDS would envy.
Stark cut and sliced him with vibroblades that were beta-tested in vibranium.
Spider-Man, true to his arachnid nature, was a hunter. He took advantage of his smaller size in comparison to the titan to crawl on him like a real spider.
His web fluid was not only highly resistant and sticky, it was also laced with paralyzing venom.
Strange was the perfect support, Stark the perfect attacker, and Spider-Man the most optimal at aggro accruing.
Drax and Quill were given free rein. They became the rogues.
Still, Thanos had [Power], [Space], [Reality], and [Soul].
With an explosion of purple, he blasted the nasty spider away. With a flash of red and amber, he warped reality into all manner of faux life he had come across with and sent them after Stark and Strange. With the gleam of blue, he warped space around himself protectively and assaulted them.
From outside the planet, the lightshow caught the attention of Nebula in a necrocraft. In search of her sister, she cared not for the insurmountable obstacle her adoptive father was. She didn't hesitate, she dived bombed him.
Thanos saw his defeat, and with it, he saw the end of his endeavor, his destiny, his fate, his glorious purpose, and that couldn't be! So he used the Space and Power Stone to pull the moon, but he didn't make his move take effect immediately.
Strange's magic, Stark's viciousness, and Spider-Man's relentlessness it was all too much; he could not even have the second or two needed to successfully pull the surface of the moon. So he settled for taking the defeat, but only momentarily.
With Nebula's support, as Thanos feared, they were able to temporarily subdue him. Mantis dropped over his head and used her powers to put him to sleep.
"Commendable work," Aragorn muttered to himself. He was not praising the Avengers, Sorcerer, and Guardians of the Galaxy, no, he was praising the true underdog, Thanos.
Nebula, the tsundere concerned sister, Peter Quill, the worried boyfriend, Drax, and Mantis were all equally emotionally dumb yet also preoccupied with Gamora's fate. So Stark, Strange, and Spider-Man had little voice in the decision to try to mine secrets from Thanos' mind instead of pulling the gauntlet off while he was restrained.
The beating Thanos had taken was also considerable enough, so they were not that worried about him escaping his hold. Not even when the truth was revealed and Peter Quill lost it and began to take his grief out on Thanos did he awaken.
What changed it all, what flipped the table instead of turning it, was the growing shadow.
"Ehmm, Mr. Stark, is the moon growing larger?" Spider-Man asked.
"PULL, KID! PULL!" Stark was too busy; he was less than an inch away from pulling the gauntlet off. However, it wasn't meant to be.
"MOVE!" Strange shouted.
Portals opened below all, and Spider-Man webbed Mantis before dragging her down from Thanos.
The shadow grew immeasurably, until there was no sky above, until the only traces of sky could be seen on the horizon. Then it crashed on the planet.
What sound does a planet-moon collision make?
To the observer from outside the planet's atmosphere, no sound at all.
To the unlucky within the planet's atmosphere... A sound so loud it was physically damaging. A change in pressure due to the gaseous displacement so violent that hurricanes and tornadoes appeared tame and cute. An exchange of potential, gravitational, and kinetic energy so vast that it was nigh-impossible to compute.
Matter went through all forms and states possible, and in the end, just as expected from two objects experiencing a plastic collision in a vacuum, all that kinetic energy transformed into deformation, light, and, most importantly, thermal energy, also known as heat.
The previously inert planet turned into a planetary mass of molten rock. It was already a miracle that the planet was standing 'whole'.
Then, with a burst of blue and red, a 'small' patch the size of a continent reversed into solid ground with a breathable atmosphere. Thanos, ragged—but recovering slowly due to the influence of his blood and the stones—appeared.
It was time for round two.
↓Part 2━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━Part 2↓
"... Fuck."
Who said that? It was unknown, but no one had a reprisal for it, for they all felt the same.
It wasn't fair, they all thought that.
They gave it their all.
Spider-Man was unconscious after having taken the brunt of the impact, shielding Mantis. No, it was beyond that; the armor and his physiology were the only things keeping him alive.
Mantis, although protected by Spider-Man, was just as unconscious after having overexerted herself in keeping Thanos asleep.
Drax, Nebula, and Star-Lord were barely standing.
Strange was bleeding from his eyes and ears, his mouth tasted like iron, and the trembling in his hands had returned.
And Stark, patches of his armor were missing or thinner than cloth; his nanotechnology was working overtime in replication through foreign matter to gain more mass, but even then, he was on his last leg.
And Thanos... For all of the beating he took—and regardless of how winded up he appeared—his physiology kept him strong, and he was steadily recovering.
If Captain America could boast of his stamina, Thanos could look down on him like a deity does a mortal.
To make matters worse, the planet was burning, melting, boiling, reshaping itself, and breaking apart, and the only livable area was the continental-sized patch Thanos was maintaining with the power of the Infinity Stones in his gauntlet.
This meant that even if they miraculously defeated him, they would perish after the reality warping became undone with his fall.
No matter how they looked at it, it was checkmate for them.
Additionally, they didn't know it, but on Earth, things were looking just as grim.
The Chitauri were a hive species that had certain 'peculiarities' for which Thanos had chosen them as his army.
The first one was most obvious: loyalty. He couldn't go around brainwashing vassals/children like he had done with Gamora, Nebula, and some of the others of his trusted people, and, with the type of path he walked, he couldn't allow for the existence of disloyal men in his army's ranks.
The colony-like behavior of the Chitauri made them perfect on that angle; he only needed to gain control over the queens, and that would be enough; the 'worker bees' would follow after.
Then, there were numbers and population growth. Thanos needed numbers and a population that replenished fast. He was dealing with planets, solar systems, and even opposing galactic empires; he couldn't have a small army or one that would take decades to replenish its lost numbers.
Hence, the Chitauri could be easily cloned, reproduced, and cyber-enhanced.
Then there were the Outriders, manic, relentless, beats, with a drive for reproduction that made even Thanos sick.
So, years ago, after Stark carried a Tesseract-powered nuclear warhead into one of his army's hives and Thanos turned his sights to Earth—and subsequently, the Imperium—he decided it was time to bolster his army's numbers.
In his opinion, a galactic empire that kept almost completely hidden for untold years was a threat greater than any of the other galactic empires he knew about.
It was the type of threat that forced him for the first time to pause his universal planning and focus on growing his army.
So, it wasn't only Wakanda that was invaded, it was only the Isthmus that was attacked, it wasn't only the Obelisks that were swarmed, but also humanity, who was targeted.
A repeat of the New York Invasion, but on a global scale.
As desperate as it was for a single planet to be facing an army specifically tailored to galactic empires, initially, things were not as hopeless.
When the Chitauri and Outriders first attacked, they focused solely on the Isthmus.
It all started when the first dropships aimed for the center of the Isthmus.
The Isthmus was a small corner of Planet Earth, by area not that much bigger than Wyoming, so when thousands of Outrider dropships pierced the atmosphere and aimed for the shrouded mystery of Isthmus, the situation appeared despairing to those who caught the attack in their satellite feed.
However, from inside the Isthmus, it was not the same mood.
"Mom, are they," the child Duskari gulped loudly, "killing themselves?"
"Stellaria," the mother Duskari placed a concerned hand over the head of the child, " Lady Mindee said the Outriders and Chitauri are shineless souls. There's no need to mind their passing. This is just nature. Just like Deviants died to bring progress to our kind, the Outriders and Chitauri are now going to bring the same blessing to the ancestrals."
"But Mom, won't it hurt them?" Stellaria visibly winced more and more as the first dropships approached the ceiling of the shield.
Then, like fireworks, thousands of dropships bloomed into fiery and smoky flowers.
"I don't want to watch, Mom," Stellaria whined.
"Okay, dear," the mother said before waving her hand and shutting down the spell—or tech, it was hard to tell—that was zooming into the suicidal entrance of the Outriders.
Indeed, for the Duskari, this was not a matter of concern. Like humans exiting their homes to look above at an eclipse, the Duskari were using tech and spells to observe the madness of the mindless beasts.
Of course, even without Thanos to personally lead his army, the Black Order were not fools who would sacrifice their army pointlessly.
"How is it, Proxima? Any entry points?" Corvus Glaive asked.
"... No," Proxima Midnight solemnly shook her head. "I can't get a clear read on it. At the moment, the only entry points are the North and South chokepoints, which they conveniently opened for us."
"A trap meant to limit the effect of our superiority in numbers," Corvus Glaive surmised.
"I can't say," Proxima Midnight stated. "Based on our Liege's intel, the enemy should have greater numbers. The chokepoints will limit them more than us."
"... I stop with the probe for the moment," Corvus Glaive said after some thought. He waved his hands dexterously over his holographic display, and the suicidal actions of the Outriders ceased.
"We'll keep pressure on them while we hunt for the stone," Proxima Midnight commanded.
"We don't need their interference in our Liege's glorious endeavor," Corvus Glaive added.
After the Outrider's 'probe' ceased, the dropships began to bless any city built around an Obelisk, which was more than 99.99999999% of the Terran cities.
The Outriders became the frontal assault, and the Chitauri took care of any stragglers and support.
Yet, as mentioned before, humanity resisted.
When the first developments born from Chitauri tech made the market, many of the technology pioneers, like Stark, Pym, Wakanda, and others, saw no need to keep a tight leash on their advancements.
And as these advancements and the Chitauri tech fertilized humanity's technological tree, the Libralisk and the erudit vampires released more knowledge pertinent to the newly made progress. This knowledge allowed humanity to understand better the alien tech and, in consequence, more advancement was born.
It was a beautiful and terrifying feedback cycle.
That was why fighter jets propelled with repulsor tech, long-range laser weaponry, shockwave missiles, energy shielding, and many more 'sci-fi' tech were mounting resistance to the invasion.
But it wasn't only that; ground assault vehicles, maritime fleets, infantry, city-wide defense systems, and many more avenues of warfare had benefited from the explosive growth.
Aside from this windfall in tech, and possibly worst of all, Aragorn had allowed them to seek refuge in the Obelisks, and he had made a public statement that he would take care of any of the damages left behind from this invasion.
Humanity, after millennia of dealing with Aragorn—though he would say it's the other way around—knew well how to read the fine print and understand what Aragorn meant with his words.
The phrase "... take care of any of the damages left behind..." was interpreted as "So long as it isn't human lives, I'll fix all back to how it was before the invasion. Go crazy, don't hold back. Show me what you can do. Don't be a pussy. Impress me."
So, many let loose with the nuclear weaponry.
Some used the standard method of launching a nuclear warhead on a missile, but after the first five were intercepted by the Chitauri, they opted for luring the Outriders and Chitauri to their cities, hiding their citizen in the Oblisks, and then blowing their cities into magnificent, deadly mushroom clouds.
The thing was, humanity had plenty of nuclear warheads to spare, but not as many as other Earths would have by the current date. This was because of Aragorn's efforts in steering humanity's interest in nuclear fission towards the energy sector.
So, eventually, fewer and fewer nuclear mushrooms were seen after the first hours.
Sure, without a doubt, humanity had dealt the invading army a blow harder than was expected; nonetheless, humanity was a single species that hadn't officially left its planet... It came as no surprise that they didn't have enough bombs, bullets, grenades, or any other form of ammunition to outlast the invaders.
Soon, all they could do was observe from the safety of the Obelsiks as the invaders overran their armies and besieged them.
Soon, only Wakanda was left resisting—most obviously, not for long.
Soon, the inevitable end would arrive...
Back on Titan, an equally inevitable end crept on the heroes.
Iron Man lay a broken man at the mercy of the Mad Titan, Strange was barely conscious, and the rest were completely passed out.
"Not once, during this hopeless fight, have you used your greater treasure," Thanos said with his gauntlet, pointed at Iron Man, shrouded in a purple aura.
"You may have broken me," Strange said between huffs, "but you haven't taken away my mind. What's the point in saving him if the moment you leave, all of us would die to this broken planet?"
"... That can be arranged," Thanos said after a long silence.
He flexed his gauntlet, blue light escaped it, and, with a cosmic, smoky shroud, a portal opened to some planet that appeared liveable at first glance.
"The stone, for safe passage," Thanos pointed at the portal. "You have my word that the planet is habitable."
Strange showed hesitation for a moment, then he followed the path of the future he had already seen. He offered the Mad Titan the stone, and his life and the lives of the others were spared.
After affixing Time to his gauntlet, Thanos left. Strange forced himself to open a few portals, and the rest fell through to the portal Thanos had left open.
"Y-You... shouldn't—"
"Save your breath, Stark," Strange interrupted him as he dragged him to the portal, his armor helping by hovering slightly. "This is the path to the best future... or as close as we can get to it."
When Strange and Stark passed through the portal last, the reality warping was undone, and the two saw where they stood moments before turned into an ocean of molten rock before the portal closed.
"I don't know... how we'll... make it back," Stark said with great effort.
"Don't worry, you'll figure it out," Strange said.
"... Okay," Stark replied. He caught that there was something wrong in the way Strange phrased it, but he was too tired to care for the moment. "Place me close to the kid," he added.
Strange dragged Stark to Spider-Man and, after having pulled him there, dropped to his butt in exhaustion.
Stark was not different from him. He transferred some much-needed nanites from his armor to Spider-Man and then passed out.
On Earth, the perilous situation worsened in an instant. They all felt it, it was something beyond humanity, something beyond mortality, different than the Nigh-divinities were. Something unnatural. A sense of wrongness.
Thanos stepped out of the blue, cosmic smoke portal, marking the universe's defeat.
It didn't matter how much hope and morale Thor had brought with his return; it didn't matter that—all things considered—casualties had been kept to a minimum, and certainly didn't matter that even the Sorcerers had joined the fight.
Thanos had arrived; that's all that mattered.
He waltzed to Vision. There was no hurry. There was no wavering. There was assurance in his steps. There was belief in himself and, most importantly, his gauntlet.
Orange-spark mandalas materialized around him; the sorcerers made a move.
Thanos tightened his fist slightly, and a red, blue, and purple haze took care of the spells and the sorcerers.
Banner, wearing the Hulkbuster, appeared, and Thanos almost flashbacked after recognizing Stark's technology.
Experienced taught him decisiveness, so this time his gauntlet glowed green and red.
The armor was turned into bubbles, and Banner was played back in time to where he came from.
James Barnes, Groot, Rocket, Falcon, War-Machine, and the many more that came after, none mattered.
And then, Wanda made the ultimate sacrifice and ended Vision along with the Mind Stone.
But... What did it matter?
Thanos, locally, turned back time and acquired the Mind Stone.
With a soft and metallic clink, the Mind Stone fitted in place, and Thanos, for the first time since creation, experienced the weight of nigh-omnipotence as the wielder of six Infinity Stones.
He then sensed him through the Space-Time mesh, no, not Aragorn, he sensed Thor coming. The Stormbreaker was such a massive lighthouse, and the abundant and violent divinity of Thor only made it worse.
Thanos, after taking a beating on Titan, was done underestimating those who stood in his way. Additionally, now that he had gotten a feeling for the six stones, it was clear they weighed too much to handle with the same ease as he had handled five.
So...
SNAP!
The universe changed.
His wish was granted.
"This feels so strange," Aragorn commented.
His form was flickering between brown dust and eldritch-glitch-sparks—whatever that was. He observed his glitching-dusting hands and tail with curiosity and not an ounce of concern.
"Was it bad luck, or did he target me?" Aragorn asked out loud.
'Father,' Seraph's voice softly echoed in his mind.
"Blue daughter, what's up?" Aragorn wasked.
'The shield we prepared resisted, but it exhausted all of our reserves,' Seraph informed him. 'In addition to the Cores you had left us, we had to use about 67% of the Drachantheon Therion's total raw divinity and close to 92% of the unclaimed faith.'
"So the Imperium can't tank another snap," Aragorn concluded.
'That's correct, Father,' Seraph confirmed.
"That's alright," Aragorn dismissively replied. "He is about to get too busy to try and snap the Imperium or the Drachantheon Therion."
'Alright, Father,' Seraph chirped. 'I'll keep you posted.'
Aragorn stopped staving off the Infinity Stones' attack and completely turned to dust.
From a satellite view of Earth, more specifically, the Isthmus, the normal view would have included a circular dome of clouds, impenetrable to all known technology. This day, however, the clouds had been blown away by something, and a shimmering dome was visible. The dome shimmered in the colors of the Infinity Stones.
Far away from the Solar System, in some of the hidden corners of the Milky Way, in the most obscure locations of the quadrant, in those unknown or feared sectors of the universe, multiple star systems could be found shielded by spheres coloured in the Infinity Stones' glow.
━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━
Planet 0259-S, The Garden...
Thanos, after stumbling through a portal of his creation, checked his surroundings and didn't lower his guard.
The left side of his body was smoking, the cosmic energy of six different authorities was coursing through his veins, and it was not a seamless feat. Even then, he was alert.
Sound of mind, he would not have portaled to this planet. The Garden was his retirement plan, not a planet he would risk on a possible cosmic clash. However, the threat Thor represented, in his vulnerable state after wielding all the stones, was considerable. His mind defaulted to this planet.
Maybe it was because, ever since walking the last steps of his path, he had been thinking of what lay beyond the goal; maybe it was normal to be sentimental after accomplishing a great feat, maybe it was the most natural instinct of seeking safety when in danger. Whatever the reason, he was on this planet, and he had burned through himself enough that he needed a few minutes to recover after the Snap.
As he liked to say, reality is often disappointing.
With a tear in the Space-Time mesh alien to everything he knew, an Astral Path opened opposite him. Through it, whom he wanted to see less, levitated with a scratch.
Aragorn caught the subtle and easy-to-miss disappointment in his eyes.
"So you did target me on purpose, huh?" Argaorn commented.
"You and your people," Thanos shamelessly revealed.
"Heh," Aragorn smiled with mockery. His eyes then went to the left side of his body. "You didn't account for the burden the stones would place on you, did you?"
"The dwarves' work, while impressive, had its unforeseen limits," Thanos said. "However, I can still snap one more time to destroy the stones."
"Nah, that's not allowed," Aragorn shook his head.
"Allowed?" Thanos asked. His damaged muscles tensed for an instant and then... nothing happened. They tensed again, and then... nothing happened. He was repeatedly trying to snap; he could feel his muscles, he could see them responding, yet there was no snap.
"As I said, that's not allowed," Aragorn said expressionlessly. "How can I practice if the dummy is broken? That's common sense, no?"
Thanos then saw it, different from his own, yet no less intense, madness. He tried to take a step back, but, like the muscles in his left arm, his legs were not responsive. It was as if they had been glowed to the ground.
Aragorn, with the same calmness he had when he waltzed to Vision, levitated to him. With the same assurance, Aragorn reached for his face. With the same certainty, he grabbed hold of Thanos' face and repaired his body with his biokinesis. With equal drive and madness, he reinforced his body and mutated it to better handle the cosmic energy of the stones.
"You promised, remember? You, the only Infinity Wielder, would train with me, remember?" Aragorn tilted his head mechanically while holding Thanos' gaze with his maddened one.
No, Thanos wanted to roar that he did not promise such a thing, but the psionic energy locking him in place didn't allow gesticulation, much less speech.
"Before we start," Aragorn spoke softly. "If you don't want to be locked in place again, you have to exist beyond space. Time and Space don't work on me. Mind and Soul, hehehe, yeah, please don't. Reality and Power are your best shots. You can try combining the latter two with the others, and maybe you'll achieve something. Preferably, all six at once, but I don't think you'll be able to snap your fingers enough times, but be my guest, don't let me stop you."
Aragorn pulled back. Thanos was still locked in place, Aragorn put distance between them, and then released him. Immediately after—
SNAP!
—Thanos snapped his fingers.
A light flashed and blinded him for a second. Before he could wonder about the result of his attack, he got his answer.
"hAhAHa! YeS! yES! tHaT's thE TyPe of MoVeS YoU nEeD tO PuLL iF yOu wANt to SuRVivE mE!" Aragorn, glitching and dusting, exclaimed from beyond the flash of light.
The thing was... He spoke with his voice, not through telekinesis.
Normally, that would have been the point where Thanos, gauntlet or no gauntlet, would have experienced the 'joys' of eldritch tongue—and not in the way that Death does—however, the stones shaved off Aragorn's existential level enough that Thanos suffered only a mild searing migraine.
"GRUAGHH!" Thanos bemoaned in pain with his right hand to his head.
"cOmE oN! yOU aRE NoT wIeLDiNG IT rIgHt!" Aragorn cheered. "wIsH FoR yOuR rAiSe In ExIStEnTiAl lEvEl! cOmE oN! EnHaNcE, bOoSt, gRowTh, rEiNfOrCe YoUrSelF, mAyBe aLL aT oNcE!"
"GAAAAGHHHHH!" Thanos bellowed like a mournful beast.
His left hand shivered, as if each finger was pulling tonnes of wight, and with great effort—
SNAP!
—He followed Aragorn's advice and wished for the growth of his vessel.
"YeS! THat's iT! DoN't wArp reality," mid-evolution, Thanos began to understand better Aragorn's speech, and the migraine seemed to vanish," warp yourself into the perfect reality warper!"
"What are you?" Thanos asked.
In the same way a divine being would never mistake Aragorn for anything natural, Thanos, after his existence climbed higher, began to notice his odities.
"That's not what we're here for," Aragorn shook his head like scolding a child. "Are you ready? Are your preparations enough?"
Even while his body was deconstructing and glitching, there was something terrifying and deeply disturbing in Aragorn that made Thanos' instincts flare up in maximum alarm.
The purple of Power shrouded him like an aura, the red of Reality extended like tendrils of light, the yellow of Mind nourished his mind, the orange of Soul stabilized his soul, and the blue and green of Space and Time aided his mobility.
He disappeared in an instant, his mind catching up to his near-instantaneous movement as it grew in Mind's nourishment, his body resisting the unmeasurable forces thanks to Power, reality supporting this type of displacement due to Reality, and Space providing him the needed spatial awareness to not atomize himself.
Yet, this was not the way to go.
"No, no, no, no," Aragorn clicked his tone in mock disappointment. "That's not it! I told you, Space and Time are not your aids."
His draconic eyes, glowing golden with the most brilliant stars and nebulae, trained on Thanos even while this one moved beyond relativistic speeds.
"You won't catch me off guard," Aragorn's tail pointed forward in a direct collision path with Thanos. "You need to think. THINK, THANOS! THINK!"
Splruergsh A wet sound echoed in the realm of normal speeds after Thanos impaled himself on Aragorn's tail.
Mercilessly, Aragorn pulled his tail free; the sharp scales of his tail ripping Thanos' flesh like hooks. "Try something else. Be better," Aragorn added as an afterthought.
Thanos blinked away and willed Time to undo the damage dealt by Aragorn.
His enhanced mind churned like a boiling sea, ideas popped by the bazillions, constructing and deconstructing plans far faster than the universe expanded.
Then he acted and—
SNAP!
—Made a wish.
"That's way better!" Aragorn excitedly praised. "Information overload and sensorial disarray; truly, this is better!"
Thanos, based on the evidence collected, understood that snapping Aragorn away was a fool's dream. However, he needed to find a way to overcome Aragorn's advantages.
One of these advantages was his ability to collect information. He extrapolated that his eyes were the most deciding factor based on clues that a normal mind would have overlooked.
But, again, through extrapolation that borderlined cosmic awareness, Thanos realized that blinding him was near impossible. So, his solution was to hack the information before it was delivered.
If Aragorn's eyes, before, saw reality as a two-dimensional stick drawing, after his latest snap, he now saw reality in 4K. Additionally, all the information was shuffled randomly.
For a normal being, this would have been beyond nightmarish. Torture, hellish damnation, these words didn't even begin to describe it.
Aragorn, however, was used to processing the data The System fed him, Seraph, and Spark.
Like a kid on the spectrum, Aragorn had to rearrange the data and solve the impossible puzzle before acting. With this, Thanos managed to stack a debuff on him.
"Still, not enough," Aragorn said before tracing random trajectories with his fingers and tail blade in the air.
Thanos didn't know what he was seeing. The traced trajectories seemed to be superimposing over reality like a straight line does over a two-dimensional drawing in all of its dimensions.
The lines were not cuts, they were not cords, they were not wounds in space. The lines were spatial planes. Entire planes of space of unmeasurable dimensions that separated reality by the seams. Like undoing a puzzle.
The planet, the Garden, the binary star system, and the surrounding celestial bodies and space—as far as Thanos could sense—split into different pieces.
It wasn't that reality was cut or threaded apart; it was that the pieces of the puzzle were separated.
For Thanos, as far as he could tell, the universe had been split apart.
"... Why?" Thanos asked in a voice so broken that not even Gamora had heard before he killed her.
"Why are you acting as if I just undid the universe?" Aragorn asked playfully. "Just snap the damage away, isn't that the same purpose you sought the ingots of creation for? To snap your problems away."
"... This is wanton destruction. Purposeless. I did what I did for the betterment of the universe. You... You simply did it because you could," Thanos somberly said.
"Don't be dramatic, just snap it away," Aragorn said with a smile that seemed to be growing with Thanos' torment.
"..." After a silence—
SNAP!
—Thanos conceded and undid the damage Aragorn had caused.
"I won't be able to train if you keep pussing out like this," Aragorn said. "You should let go."
"?" Thanos didn't comprehend what Aragorn was referring to, at least not in the beginning; however, the next moment, when Aragorn began tracing imaginary planes again, he understood.
The universe was undone again.
"Let go," Aragorn repeated. "There's you, me, your gauntlet, and," he opened his arms wide, "the battlefield."
Aragorn waited for no reply. He left behind his humanoid coil and returned to his truth. A body made of crystal, two pairs of horns, one facing forward, the other set facing backward. The eternal flame swayed with the pulse of his mood. Eyes reflecting the yellow of the universe with white slitted pupils. In the middle of its forehead, a vertical eye that looked more akin to a hole with a bead of void than an eye.
"FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!"
Aragorn's command forced him back into action.
Thanos tried to make some distance, but Aragorn ignored distance.
Thanos tried to use Mind and Space and destroy Aragorn's Mindscape, but Aragorn destroyed it himself and remade it in an instant.
Thanos tried to Soul, Mind, and Reality to target Aragorn's soul, but Aragorn simply detonated it himself, engulfing Thanos in the process.
"..." For a moment, a brief one, Thanos believed he had succeeded. Just a brief one.
Thanos tried to force Aragorn into a spatiotemporal cage, Aragorn ignored it and phased through it as if it were matter.
With no other choice—
SNAP! "AAAAAHHHHGGGGHHHH!" SNAP! "AAAAAHHHHGGGGHHHH!" SNAP! "AAAAAHHHHGGGGHHHH!" SNAP! "AAAAAHHHHGGGGHHHH!" SNAP! "AAAAAHHHHGGGGHHHH!" SNAP! "AAAAAHHHHGGGGHHHH!"
—He snapped away like crazy with no regard for the burden it placed on his vessel. One snap for Aragorn's mind, one for his soul, one for the body, one for the space he occupied, one for the time he colonized, and one for the good measure. Thanos targeted all he could recognize with his enhanced supernatural senses.
Aragorn, with a smile that sent chills down the beholder's spine, disappeared into a mess of glicthing dust.
HUFFHUFFHUFFHUFFHUFFHUFFHUFF
Thanos was in no condition to even stay alert and double-check if he had truly snapped Aragorn away. His Trinity of Self was ground almost to dust. He was only standing because he was using the power of the stones to force his body to keep running. Almost factually, he was a puppet controlled by himself as the puppeteer.
"I'm disappointed in you, Thanos... I'm very disappointed," a voice that, to Thanos, seemed to come from the deepest, most infernal pits of hell, called out. "Reassembling myself was the first trick I learned."
As if light had decided to gain physical form, it confluenced into a spot and, under the cloak of brightness and shine, Aragorn reassembled back into his draconic form.
"Come on, Thanos," Aragorn ignored distance and wrapped his head around Thanos' neck. It wasn't a constricting hold; it was just firm. In a repeat of what he had done at the start of the 'fight', Aragorn used his biokinesis, and matter and energy control, to bring him back to his new peak.
"What are you doing?" Thanos voiced out. He could understand what Aragorn had done to his body and soul. He felt stronger, as if the previous fight had wrought him like iron and he had come out stronger, sturdier, better. Yet, he could not understand why.
With a smile that almost split his face horizontally, Aragorn asked, "How can I practice if the dummy is broken? That's common sense, no?"
"... You... don't mean to... Impossible," Thanos muttered in half disbelief, half horror.
To that, Aragorn smiled with his body. Not only on his face. Maws with rows of teeth to donate to every shark for life surfaced all across his crystal-like body. The horror of the maws clashed with the pristine clarity of the cyrstal-scales. And these maws, these mouths, all of them smiled in the same tune of madness.
The first day, Aragorn attacked without concern for reality, and when reality couldn't bear it anymore, only then and not before, when it started to crumble, Thanos realized that the entire fight, since the very beginning, had been a product of Aragorn using his mind control as soon as he spoke to him.
Madness crept like evil lurking in the shadows after that realization.
On the second day, Aragorn 'lowered' himself to fight in CQC. Thanos was an experienced fighter. He was old enough to have witnessed the rise and fall of a few empires—to be fair, he caused many of these falls, but let's leave that aside for now—so he knew his way around fighting.
But this was no fight.
Aragorn would throw a punch, and from the same arm, five or six arms would grow and throw punches too. Thanos would avoid, only for the limbs to curve unnaturally and follow after. Aragorn would make the tell for a kick, only for his body to be suddenly launched without the tell of movement. That day, Thanos learned about frustration.
On the third day, Aragorn deemed himself a magician. Thanos should have had the advantage here, even more so because Aragorn was using only elemental spells; however, whenever he tried to exploit that advantage, he would be trapped in a repeat of the first day. Futility became his company that day.
On the fourth day, Aragorn began to subtly apply his concepts to him. That's when real madness took hold. Thanos could swear he fought the most ruthless and deadly battle to date, yet, at the end, he realized he was fighting another Thanos, all while Aragorn spectated with popcorn and soda.
On the fifth day—from Thanos' perspective, it had been about 136 years because Aragorn had messed with his mind countless times—Thanos applied all he had learn of the Infinity Stones to... escape.
The sixth day was punishment for the actions taken on the fifth. A mistaken part of him thought that since he had been experiencing torture for over 136 years, there was nothing Aragorn could do to punish him. Thanos lost his memory of that day, but every time Aragorn mentioned punishment, he would find motivation rising from the core of his soul, laced in existential dread.
Aragorn wasn't shittying him, he truly was training with Thanos. However, based on his predictive models, he expected Odin to be a monster a few existential levels above Thanos back on Earth-5H1N3. So, before training and learning from sparring with Thanos, he needed to pull the Mad Titan to the appropriate level.
Naturally, Thanos didn't share his view.
On the 21st day, Thanos had forgotten who he was. He only cared about fighting, adapting to fight, recovering to fight, learning to fight, moving to fight, existing to fight, and evolving to fight.
From his perspective, though long since had the count been lost, he had been at it for almost a million years. He had been at it for so long that the memories of that made him Thanos, seemed inconsequential by comparison. Like a day in the life of a 100-year-old human.
Even without all the madness and obsession clouding his hyper-focused mind, there was so much more about fighting Aragorn in his memories than there was about anything else that there was no going back now.
23 days later, the gauntlet had fused with the arm, the stones to the gauntlet, and Thanos went about buck naked. Aragorn didn't care about nudity and Thanos... Thanos didn't care about anything not related to fighting.
Thanos was fighting. Fighting was Thanos.
"Thanos," Aragorn called.
"..." Thanos didn't reply. It wasn't that he didn't hear him or was ignoring him; it was simply that Thanos no longer responded to the name.
"I won't stop you this time," Aragorn said like the devil whispering sweet nothings.
"..."
"You have my word," Aragorn cajoled. "I won't stop you from destroying the stones this time. I set you free."
"..." His expression was alert, fierce, vacant, dazed, and lost all at once. With his left hand trembling... with an effort that appeared beyond monumental... he snapped one last time.
His left hand was gone with him, but Aragorn protected the rest of his body from the resulting cosmic pulse-explosion.
"Hah..." He let out a tired sigh and then collapsed, unmoving. Awake, conscious, but unmoving.
Thanos was fighting, and fighting was Thanos, but if Thanos wasn't fighting, then what was Thanos supposed to do/be?
Nothing, Thanos, what remained of him, could do nothing else but nothing.
And Aragorn, while observing this, had one of the most sadistic and disgustingly cruel grins ever possible.
The Garden, what remained of it by the end of day 23, and the surrounding space, it was all so warped, destroyed, undone, redone, deconstructed, and beyond any adjective that when a small ship arrived near it, had it not been because Aragorn shielded it with his void barrier, it would have disappeared. Disappeared, not atomized, not destroyed, not undone, disappear.
Aragorn pulled the ship through the violent space and assisted it to land near them.
Nebula, Captain Marvel, Rocket, Thor, Widow, War-Machine, Banner, and Captain America exited with cautious steps.
Aragorn didn't acknowledge them; he was busy staring at what was left of Thanos, pleased and satisfied.
"A-Aragorn," Banner asked. "We thought you had... disappeared."
"I was busy," there was a content chirp to his voice.
"That... I can see that," Banner stammered out.
"What did you do to him?" Nebula asked.
"He helped me train," Aragorn replied.
"Mr. Abner," Carol Danvers called out. "Where are the stones?"
"Gone," Aragorn said and pulled his eyes away from the vestiges of the titan known as Thanos.
"Oh, no," Rocket muttered.
"You... you can fix this, can't you not, Mr. Abner?" Rhodey asked.
"Mmmmm... I'll leave that task to you," Aragorn said before disappearing.
Then, like a movie playing back, all around them, all the damage that spanned hundreds of thousands of light-years was fixed.
╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝
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{A/N:
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