Knowhere, the severed head of a Celestial located on the northern edge of the Andromeda galaxy.
It was the headquarters of the one known as the Collector, a figure that controlled the black market of the galaxy and was known as a collector of all things living and non-living.
Here, one would find the Exitar mining operation resided, a group formed to mine organic material from the Celestial skull they were in.
It was also here where most of the universe's bounty hunters spent their resting time, through drinking, gambling or whoring, whichever one felt the best.
However, if one were to see Knowhere now, they would not see a bustling mining company that had dozens of ships flying about.
No, what they would see would be nothing but a burning landscape. Broken spacecrafts and bodies littered the land, puddles of fuel and blood flowing freely through its streets.
A few were still standing, the tallest of them being a green-skinned woman dressed in a tight, form-fitting black bodysuit with a dark brown jacket thrown over it.
Beside her was a tall man with light brown hair and a pair of blasters in hand. Laying on the ground beside him was a shirtless man with grey skin and red veins, a bipedal raccoon, a short tree-like humanoid and a young Asian woman with antennas growing from her forehead.
All but the first two were unconscious, the man himself breathing heavily along with the woman as they stared at their foe.
"Why are you here?" The woman asked, staring at the shadowed form of Thanos who walked through the streets towards her.
The gauntlet on his hand let off a two-toned glow, one being a dark azure blue and the other a crimson red.
"Why else, daughter? I am here to finally retrieve the one thing you've been withholding from me," Thanos replied and Gamora felt a sense of dread, turning to Peter to see him standing at the ready with his blasters.
"Peter," she called, to which he took a glance at her. "I need you to listen very closely."
"Nope, that sounds like a goodbye and that's not happening. Hey, grape buttchin! Why don't you turn around and run back to whatever wine planet you came from?!" Thanos didn't say anything as he looked at Gamora, who in turn looked between her father and her lover.
"Peter," she called out again, his eyes finally focused on hers as she stared at him.
"Kill me."
"...What?" he asked, wanting to make sure he heard that right. Thanos on the other hand paused in his steps, waiting patiently as Peter looked to Gamora. "You being serious right now?"
"Kill me, Peter. If he gets what he wants, then everyone in the universe is going to die. Please, kill me."
"No, I'm not going to do that. That's a stupid id-"
"Peter!" she cut him off with a sharp yet desperate tone, his eyes moving between her and an amused Thanos who stood with his arms crossed.
"Please, go ahead. I won't stop you," the Titan spoke and Peter gritted his teeth. Gripping his blasters tightly, he aimed one at Gamora and the other at Thanos, who raised an eyebrow.
"Gamora. I...I..."
"I know, Peter. I love you too," she replied and Peter pulled both triggers, but to his surprise, bubbles slowly drifted from their barrels instead of the plasma blasts that he was expecting.
"Hmm, I like him," Thanos replied, vanishing through a dark blue void in space and reappearing beside Gamora in the blink of an eye.
Peter tried to cross the space between them, but found himself trapped in a cube of water that appeared around him. The last thing he saw before darkness took him was Thanos clenching his gauntlet-clad fist and dragging Gamora through a final portal.
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Gamora stumbled as she was tossed through a portal, wincing at the chilling winds that assaulted her body. Looking around, she stared at the dark, dreary landscape around her, a few mountains in the distance.
They themselves were at the plateau of a large mountain, a series of stone arches leading from the point they were standing on towards the peak of the mountain above.
"Thanos, son of A'Lars. Gamora, daughter of Thanos," she spun immediately and took out a pair of daggers at the hissing voice behind them.
Instead of a monster, a being in a hooded black cloak stood under the first arch, their sunken blue eyes first staring at Thanos before moving to Gamora.
"Who are you?"
"Nothing more than an old soul, cursed to guide others to a treasure I cannot possess," the figure replied, revealing nothing but red skin underneath the hood that looked unnatural.
"You are the guardian of the Soul Stone then?" Thanos asked, Gamora letting out a defeated sigh as the hooded figure simply nodded.
"So, you found out?"
"No, someone informed me."
"Who? I burned everything," she replied, but didn't receive an answer as Thanos followed after the figure floating away.
She thought of running away. Oh, the thought was the first to flash through her mind, but unfortunately, she also knew that he would easily catch her again.
Even if he didn't, she didn't have a guarantee that he wouldn't go after her friends and while old her would have left them all to die in an attempt to run away, the new her couldn't.
With her mind made up, she followed after them, ascending the mountain until the three of them reached the peak.
"How do I get the stone?" Thanos asked, turning his gaze to the Red Skull as he hovered at the edge.
"Unlike the others, the Soul Stone requires a special price, a price paid to ensure that the one who holds it understands the power at their command."
"Enough with the riddles," Thanos spoke and the Red Skull turned to him before nodding.
"To obtain the stone, you must lose that which you love. A Soul for a Soul," he explained and Gamora felt nothing but joy as she saw the surprise in Thanos' eyes.
"Yes, finally. Hahahaha!" she knew that she was drawing attention to herself, but she couldn't help it. For once, in her miserable life, she won.
Even as he turned to her with tears dripping from his eyes, she couldn't help her mocking smile and spoke, "Really? You're crying? Pathetic."
"They're not for him," her eyes widened as Thanos' hand wrapped around her wrist, looking at him to see the slight tears at the corners of his eyes while he dragged her over to the edge.
"Wha-What are you doing?!"
"What I have to," he replied and she reached for any of her weapons only to find nothing but strings in her pockets.
"Wait! Wait, please! Please, this isn't love! Please, Dad!" Thanos ignored her words as he walked to the edge, a surprised cry escaping Gamora's lips as she was thrown over the edge.
Thanos watched as she flailed to try and grab onto anything, feeling nothing but sorrow and resigned determination when her body crashed into the ground with a loud crack.
The moment it did, he heard the crackling of cosmic power, looking up to see a bright white light illuminating the skies.
Closing his eyes to both shield them from the light and to fight off the budding tears, he opened them when the energy died down, finding himself lying on his back in the middle of a small puddle.
Sitting up, he stared at the mountain that they just climbed before looking to his right hand, staring at the Soul Stone grasped in it that shone with a dim orange hue.
Placing it in the pinky knuckle slot next to the Reality Stone, a soft sigh escaped his lips as the cosmic energy of the stone intermixed with the others. Yet, as he stood up, he felt not a shred of excitement at the fact that he now had three of the Infinity Stones in his grasp.
No, all he felt was anguish.
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A sigh escaped my lips as I sat back in the chair, Wanda seated right beside me in the middle of the Avengers' conference room.
In front of us sat the Avengers, all of them having wary eyes fixed on the Uru-built Ultron body lying on the table in between us.
The Power Stone itself was with Aria, who had decided to seal it away in the same isolated Mirror Dimension as where we had put the Mind Stone.
"So, you wanna start on what the hell is going on?" Tony broke the silence and I sighed as I saw Wanda's frown.
Great, she's going to be mad at him again.
"Well, as you see from the design, it's your murder robot Ultron."
"And like I've said so many times, we had only the barebones of an A.I. that wasn't even ready for testing," Tony replied and I subtly wrapped my hand around Wanda's as I saw her ready to respond.
"No. Keep calm," I whispered, to which she took a deep breath while I looked back to Stark.
"Well, you say that, but it's because of you attempting to make one that I'm now stuck with an A.I. trying to replicate my powers."
"Why is he doing that, by the way?" Hawkeye asked with a raised eyebrow. "What's so special about your speed or where it comes from?"
"Mostly because of the unique elements in the energy that gives me my speed."
"Right, I took a scan of the last time you were here and it isn't a registered element that exists in any database on Earth."
"That doesn't surprise me. After all, the only other person with chaos energy that I know of is this one here," I spoke while gesturing to Wanda, who raised a hand and conjured a small orb of pure chaos energy at her fingertips.
That drew the attention of not only Tony, but also Banner and Thor. The former was mesmerised by how it danced at her fingers, but Thor on the other hand was more fixated on the energy itself.
"What kind of cosmic energy is that?"
"Chaos energy that originates from Chaos Magic, a magic unique to myself," Wanda replied as she snuffed the energy out.
"Intriguing. It is not unusual from the cosmic energy I possess," he replied and I stared at the electricity that danced across his arm. I could feel the same cosmic energy coursing through it that I felt in the Eternals' attacks, but at the same time, there was an ethereal presence intermixed with it that made me narrow my eyes.
"Cosmic energy, eldritch and...is that divine energy? I assume that's from your nature as a god?" Wanda asked, most likely having sensed the same energy I did as Thor nodded with an impressed look.
"Indeed it is. It is quite impressive that you are able to detect it since I didn't try to add in that much energy."
"It's somewhat hard. Pietro, can you?"
"I can feel the cosmic and eldritch energies, but the only way I can describe the added divine magic is that of an ethereal presence. It's almost as though it should not be sensed and yet, it yearns to be detected by others."
"That is how I feel with your...chaos energy, you call it?" he asked and Wanda nodded. "Yes, it is detectable and I can feel its need to reach out to me, but at the same time, it feels as though it would consume me if I tried to to touch it."
"Well, now that we've all talked about the twins and their unique abilities, can we focus on the matter at hand? More specifically, Ultron and his attempts to try to destroy the world," Steve spoke up, all of us nodding as he turned to Tony.
"What would it take for us to find and destroy Ultron?"
"We don't have anything that is on the level of processing power needed to even detect Ultron let alone destroy him," he replied with a scoff. "J.A.R.V.I.S. has been running 24/7 and fully connected to the new Arc Reactor model, and he's only able to follow traces left behind days ago."
"Combine that with the fact that he's using the data he's gotten from his experiments on my speed to boost his processing power, it's safe to say that we're never catching up to him," I replied and they sighed. "Unless, of course, you can figure out a way to push my mind safely into the internet. Then, I can use my super-speed on my thinking speed to try and cut him off."
"Yeah, no. We're leaving A.I. and anything related to the mind on its own," Tony replied with a shake of his head and I shrugged, my eyes flicking to Wanda who sat silently.
"Anything to add, sister?"
"Yes, we should get a chilli cheese dog for Shang and Xialing, remember?" she replied and I paused at that with a blink before letting out a wry sigh and nodding.
"Right, forgot about that. Is there anything else you all need our help with?"
"If you can help with repairs, that would be fantastic," Steve spoke and I gave a thumbs-up.
"I'm going to get those chilli dogs, get my sister back home and then I'll come back to help."
"You still have that thing with the Eternals," I turned to Wanda as she spoke and frowned.
"I think you guys should handle it. That way, Ikaris doesn't try to kill me the moment I show up."
"...True. Well then, Avengers, Stark. It has been...nice to meet you again."
"There's her way of saying 'nice to see you, Avengers, and you're still a bitch, Stark,'" I translated, Tony just giving a thumbs-up as the others looked amused.
It didn't help that Wanda just nodded in agreement before she formed a portal behind us and walked through.
"Also, Pietro?" Tony spoke up and I turned to see the focused look in his eyes. "If Ultron tries to make contact or attacks you again, you think you can keep him isolated in the southern areas of Russia?"
"Why?"
"Just...can you do that?" I stared at him for a while before I sighed and gave a nod.
"Fine, I'm putting my trust in you though, Stark."
"I understand and if it puts your mind at rest, I figured out where exactly Ultron came from. We're going to visit him in a few minutes."
"We are?" Hawkeye asked, though I left that to them to discuss as I hummed and stepped through the portal.
It sealed shut behind me as Wanda turned to me, a dozen chilli dogs levitating around him while she ate another she held in hand.
"Great, you're here. Could you pay the kind vendor?" she asked, my gaze moving past her to the man that looked wide-eyed at the display of magic in front of him.
"...Sure. How much do I owe you?"
A/N: The past couple of chapters have been nothing but fights so a bit of a shorter chapter that shows off the fun yet quirky sides of everyone.
Next chapter: A bit more fun before we jump back into the timeline.
As always, read, enjoy, review and until the next one...
Ba-Bye~!!