Thanos' massive warship floated in the sky like a dark omen. A crowd of furious superheroes surrounded the Mad Titan, delivering justice with their fists in the most visceral way possible. The weaker heroes couldn't even get close to the scrum. Too many bodies, too much rage.
Mario stood on the outskirts, occasionally casting Font of Vitality. The spell granted Thanos +3 health regeneration and +3 resistance, just enough to keep the enraged heroes from beating him to death before they got their answers.
Captain Marvel didn't join the mob. She watched from a distance, arms crossed. Unlike the others, she had no personal vendetta against him. Besides, there were already too many people throwing punches. She wasn't about to elbow her way into that mess.
Mario's attention drifted to the glowing figure standing apart from the chaos. Not Captain Marvel herself, he wasn't that stupid, but her power. She was absurdly strong. Without the Infinity Stones, she alone could have dismantled Thanos' entire army. What impressed him most was watching her return from space and casually tank direct hits from the warship's main cannons before ramming straight through the vessel.
She caught Mario staring. Her lips curved into a smile. "Hi. Steve told me about you."
She tilted her head slightly. "Want to test yourself against me?"
Mario took a deep breath and nodded. His intentions were written all over his face.
"Ms. Danvers, your power is fascinating. I'd like to see what I can do against it."
His directness seemed to amuse rather than offend her. "Alright. After we deal with Thanos, before I leave Earth, I'll let you feel what I can do."
The sound of flesh hitting flesh drew their attention back to the beating in progress. Thanos looked pitiful. Being savagely attacked by superheroes who wanted to tear him apart limb from limb had left him battered and bleeding, with no opportunity to fight back.
Thor wasn't using Stormbreaker at the moment. He fought bare-handed, lightning crackling in his eyes as he drove his fists into Thanos' head again and again.
"Thanos! This is for Loki!"
In this universe, Loki had died at Thanos' hands, right in front of Thor. That was the one thing the God of Thunder couldn't accept. A thousand years of brotherhood, of love and hate and everything in between, ended by this guy.
"This time I won't miss!"
He reached out to summon Stormbreaker, but before the axe could arrive, Scarlet Witch interrupted. A sphere of chaos magic slammed into Thanos' chest.
"He dies by MY hand."
Scarlet Witch had become obsessed, driven by grief and rage into something approaching madness. She wasn't about to let anyone else deliver the killing blow.
A portal opened beside Mario. Kaecilius stepped through, dragging an unconscious figure behind him.
"He's alive."
Mario looked at Maw and nodded with satisfaction. The telekinetic alien was fascinating, both as a research subject and as an individual. In the original timeline, getting sucked into space and frozen to death had seemed like such a waste. Someone like him deserved a more... dignified end. An ice spear through the chest during an elegant duel, perhaps.
"Keep him under. Don't let him wake up. His abilities are dangerous."
A magical sigil appeared on Kaecilius' wrist and burrowed into Maw's unconscious mind.
"Don't worry. I've suppressed his mental powers completely. Even if he wakes, it won't matter."
Mario nodded, then pointed to Supergiant, who was crouched nearby trying to make herself as small as possible. "Dump her next to him."
The telepath trembled. She wasn't afraid of dying, she was afraid of what this Earth sorcerer might do to her if she disobeyed. Her telepathic abilities had shown her exactly how dangerous he was, and how little he cared about conventional morality.
When Kaecilius deposited Maw's unconscious form beside her, she immediately scooted several feet away.
The entire battlefield fell silent.
Thor stood there, breathing hard, holding something purple in his raised fist. Thanos' severed head, eyes still wide in death, finally belonged to the God of Thunder.
Just as he'd promised, this time he hadn't missed. Stormbreaker had severed the head cleanly.
He dropped the head and fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. All that pain he'd buried beneath his drunken, fallen exterior, it all came pouring out now.
But Loki would never come back.
Neither would the Asgardians slaughtered by Thanos' forces.
Heavy footsteps announced Hulk's return. The green giant approached with something mangled and bloody in one massive fist, Obsidian, barely recognizable as humanoid anymore.
Hulk stopped beside Mario and rumbled, "Sandbag... broke."
Mario looked at Obsidian's twisted features and blood-soaked body. He felt a brief flicker of pity. Then he saw the slight disappointment in Hulk's eyes, and that pity vanished.
Hulk's one of us. Who gives a shit about Obsidian?
He waved his wand. Holy light fell upon the broken Black Order member. Under the spell's effect, his wounds began healing at visible speed.
"Wait until he wakes up before you play again. And try to be more careful this time, don't break him."
He had no illusions about Obsidian surrendering. But keeping Hulk happy? That was worth more than any prisoner.
Wait... Hulk's already back, so why hasn't Blade finished his fight?
Blade's strength didn't match Hulk's raw power, but with his vampire upgrades and combat skills, he should have been able to hold his own against Glaive.
Mario turned his gaze toward their battlefield, and what he saw made him do a double-take.
Blade's armor had been shredded to pieces by Glaive's weapon. Only the flight system under his feet was still functioning. Even his clothing was torn and bloodied, covered in wounds.
Blood was everywhere. Not metaphorical blood, actual pools of it soaking into the dirt.
Blade, Pearl, and Stacy surrounded Glaive and Midnight. The exhaustion on the couple's faces was visible even from this distance.
Pearl strode forward with an expression so warped that if Stacy hadn't been there, Mario might have mistaken the scene for a loan shark threatening a struggling couple.
Glaive no longer carried his earlier menace. He stretched out one hand to shield Midnight behind him. With a single thrust, his glaive could have easily pierced Pearl's body, but he hesitated.
He didn't strike until Pearl lunged forward. Then he raised his weapon and stabbed.
Pearl made no attempt to dodge. He almost seemed to lean into the strike.
The glaive went through his gut. Blood poured from the wound, dripping onto the ground.
He pointed one finger at Midnight.
"Fight me instead!" Glaive shouted.
Pearl laughed harshly as stolen blood accelerated his healing. The wound in his gut closed in seconds. "She tastes way better than you do."
Hearing that perverse comment, Mario immediately understood what had happened. Eighty percent of the blood on the ground belonged to Pearl. "Enough with the psycho serial killer routine! If they won't surrender, just kill them already!"
With Thanos dead and the Black Order finally dealt with, the battlefield began to settle. The Avengers checked on the wounded, Thor stood silently over the Titan's corpse, and the dust of the fight drifted away on the wind.
And that's when he remembered.
He slowly turned his head toward Captain Marvel, who was still waiting for him.
All that remained was the fight.
---
Can't win. I really can't fucking win.
Mario stared at Captain Marvel, who had just activated Binary Mode. The pride that had swelled in his chest after defeating Thanos came crashing down like a building demolition.
How is it even possible to have such a bullshit mode...
Before Binary activation, he had been handling Captain Marvel relatively well, throwing out spells to give her trouble, keeping her on the defensive. But once she went Binary, everything changed.
Any spell below Master-tier only had a momentary effect. She just powered through everything he threw at her.
Damn it, how am I supposed to fight this? I only have a few Master-tier spells...
He'd originally thought that if he ever pissed off Fury bad enough that Fury called Captain Marvel back to Earth, he could just drag things out until her energy reserves depleted. But after seeing her absurd regeneration ability in action, he realized the truth, if he really had to fight her, he'd be better off hiding underground or fleeing to another dimension entirely.
"Ms. Danvers, that's enough."
He waved his hand to stop the sparring match. Continuing would just waste the energy stored in his wand.
Captain Marvel stopped her assault and powered down from Binary Mode. When Mario called for a halt, she felt relief.
It looked like his attacks hadn't affected her much, but she knew better. He was the most unpredictable and versatile opponent she'd ever faced. Even at full power, she couldn't put him down for good.
During their brief exchange, she'd suffered poison, dizziness, nausea, and other negative effects she couldn't even name. It had been rough.
Especially that ability to make himself vanish completely, she'd had no counter for that.
[Transience:
Tier: Advanced
Element: Healing
Mana Cost: 50
Effect: Makes the caster transient for 20 seconds. The caster is immune to all damage while transient but cannot break or place blocks or cause any damage.]
Mario looked disappointed, completely unaware that everyone watching was speechless. Whether or not he was the strongest didn't matter, his abilities were insane.
He walked toward Banner, ready to take stock of his gains: one mothership, most of the Black Order, and one dead Thanos.
Plus new allies in this universe. Stark had already developed nanotech armor, and since Mario had saved his life, getting some advanced technology in return shouldn't be a problem.
Then his gaze landed on Scarlet Witch, crouched on the ground. An idea suddenly formed in his mind.
Compared to Captain Marvel, he felt Scarlet Witch was even more valuable. She had reality-warping powers, unstable, sure, but with proper guidance, she'd make an excellent addition to his team.
He walked over and crouched beside her.
"Ms. Maximoff. Would you be interested in helping me with an experiment?"
Scarlet Witch lifted her tear-filled eyes. Thanos' death had brought only fleeting satisfaction, followed by deeper emptiness.
At the word "experiment," her eyes flashed red, clearly recalling painful memories. But in the next instant, she grabbed Mario's arm.
"I want to try reviving Vision. Theoretically, he wasn't truly alive, he was an embodiment of the Mind Stone. Everything that made him should still exist within it."
If Thanos could rewind time and restore the Mind Stone destroyed by chaos magic, there was no reason others couldn't do the same.
If that failed, Mario could use his own Mind Stone. Since his stone came from another universe, it should still be able to govern this universe's mental rules, theoretically, they were the same thing.
"If you can help me bring him back, I'll agree to anything."
She was nearly delirious, grasping at the faintest glimmer of hope.
Strange had been secretly observing Mario throughout the battle. He found the sorcerer dangerous, not because he had done anything overtly malicious, but because of what he was capable of doing.
He stepped forward. "The Infinity Stones were destroyed by Infinity Stone power. Their energy comes from the same source, you can't use one Stone to restore another."
The light in Scarlet Witch's eyes dimmed slightly, but Mario didn't seem bothered. He reached into his inventory and pulled out his own Infinity Gauntlet, shaking it so the Mind Stone glimmered in the light.
"This thing isn't all that special. From my testing, if two Infinity Stones of the same type exist in one universe, their power just gets split evenly between them. The Stones' power doesn't vanish, they're just keys. Keys that unlock their respective universal laws. Even if a key is destroyed, the authority it represents doesn't disappear. Otherwise, the universe would collapse without those six governing principles."
He held up the Gauntlet. "My theory? Vision's consciousness still exists, trapped within the Mind Stone's domain, unable to manifest. If we use the Time Stone to restore Vision's body to the exact moment before Thanos destroyed it, then insert the Mind Stone, his unique consciousness should be able to return through it."
Strange stared at Mario's Infinity Gauntlet and the Stones embedded in it, unable to process what he was seeing.
Space, Mind, and Soul... Mario already possessed half of all Infinity Stones.
"You make a convincing argument. But doing this means you'll lose a Mind Stone..."
He watched Mario closely, trying to gauge his true intentions.
Mario just smiled, pried the Mind Stone from the Gauntlet, and tossed it to Scarlet Witch. "I have one condition, once Vision is revived, he comes with me to my universe. After all, this Stone belongs there."
He was lying, of course. That Stone had been borrowed from Universe No. 2.
"You can go retrieve Vision's body now. We happen to have a Time Stone right here." He glanced meaningfully at Strange. "And even if we didn't, I have an excellent relationship with the Sorcerer Supreme in my universe. Borrowing one would be simple."
As he said this, he maintained eye contact with Strange, who stayed silent.
Scarlet Witch clutched the Mind Stone, and red energy flared around her body. She shot into the sky, more excited than she'd been even while fighting Thanos.
Strange watched her go, realizing Mario's real goal was recruiting both Scarlet Witch and Vision to his cause.
He didn't try to stop her. Her future was too unpredictable. Even he couldn't be certain what it would bring.
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