Chapter 348: Call Backup! Call Backup! One More Second and I'm Toast!
"Pathetic. Pathetic. Is this really all you've got? Do keep entertaining me." Home-Thanos held off Wanda, Doctor Strange, and the others with a single hand, mocking them all the while.
With Home-Thanos's army joining the fray, the battlefield's chaos multiplied several times over — though at least, mercifully, his forces attacked indiscriminately.
Both the original alien horde and the Avengers alike found themselves under assault from this newly-arrived army.
Naturally, both Ethan and Thanos had already registered the sheer chaos unfolding around them — and had both clocked the new Thanos's arrival too.
This plot has genuinely gone completely off the rails. My luck really is this bad, huh — dealing with one Thanos wasn't enough, now there's a second one? How did this guy even get here?
Ethan's mind was full of deep, unanswerable questions. This situation had turned genuinely bad, fast.
He'd also clocked that Home-Thanos was already carrying three Infinity Stones — meaning neither the Avengers nor Strange stood any chance whatsoever against him.
Ethan wasn't the only one who'd noticed. Thanos had too.
He couldn't care less about this new Home-Thanos, and honestly wasn't even surprised — if he himself could reach this universe, why shouldn't some other version of himself be able to reach it too.
All that mattered to him was the Gauntlet. When he saw Home-Thanos casually discard the Avengers' own gauntlet on the ground, his first reaction was fury. His second: he had to have it.
Reclaim the Gauntlet, and the man currently standing in front of him would no longer pose any real threat at all.
Seizing the moment while Ethan was distracted, Thanos bolted toward the discarded Gauntlet.
Naturally, Ethan had no intention of letting him succeed. He'd only been holding a slight edge over Thanos to begin with — if Thanos got his hands on the Gauntlet now, the fight would turn dramatically harder, probably back to a genuine coin-flip.
"Going somewhere? Don't even think about running!" Ethan's voice rang out across the field, his body blurring into a streak of lightning as he closed the distance.
His weapon flashed with cold light as he brought it down toward Thanos in a thunderous arc.
"You are unbelievably irritating!" Thanos, seeing Ethan block his path yet again, felt fury boil up inside him. He roared and threw a punch that sent terrifying waves of energy rippling through the air.
This time, Ethan wasn't holding anything back either — he unleashed his power at full strength.
"What?!" Thanos couldn't believe it — his own strength was starting to lose ground?
He'd conquered world after world on the strength of his Titan physiology and raw physical power alone.
And now, here, he was being outright overpowered by Ethan?
Realizing the situation had turned against him, Thanos scrambled to dodge Ethan's assault.
He moved with startling agility across the battlefield, nothing like what you'd expect from a man of his massive bulk.
But Ethan simply outclassed him in speed and technique both — no matter which direction Thanos fled, Ethan was there to cut him off.
Thanos understood clearly now: there was no path to the Gauntlet without dealing with this man first.
Ethan understood something just as clearly — his time was limited. He had to finish off this Thanos before Home-Thanos managed to pry the Time Stone away from Strange. If Home-Thanos ever completed his set, there'd be no beating him at all.
Even if Ethan somehow won that fight, Home-Thanos could just rewind time itself to erase the loss.
Just like in the film — Thor had already landed the killing blow on Thanos once, only for Thanos to reverse time and undo it entirely.
Two men, two entirely different agendas, converging on the exact same conclusion: finish the other off, fast.
Ethan kept Thanos pinned down while working through his options, and found himself genuinely grateful, of all things, that the newcomer had turned out to be Thanos. Anyone else might have teamed up against him. But Thanos being Thanos, neither of them would ever bow to the other — each utterly convinced of his own supremacy. Just look at Home-Thanos's own army, attacking indiscriminately — as far as he was concerned, Ethan and this world's Thanos were both simply enemies to be dealt with.
To achieve his goals, this was a man willing to sacrifice the daughter he'd raised for years — willing to sacrifice even himself. A parallel-universe version of himself meant absolutely nothing to him by comparison.
Thanos was, fundamentally, a man who was ruthless toward everyone — himself included, more than anyone.
Ethan's Observation Haki could already sense the Avengers' collective strength fading fast across the battlefield. At this rate, whether it was Thanos's army or the Avengers themselves, everyone here was going to die. A classic case of the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind it — except nobody could have predicted the oriole here would turn out to be Home-Thanos himself.
Looking out at the endless sea of enemy troops, Ethan felt his own limitations weighing on him. Unlike the source material's version, the Shadow Legion wasn't some free, unlimited resource for clearing mooks — there was no Eight Demon Gods here, no ambient demonic energy to draw from in this world.
Sustaining the Shadow Legion demanded a continuous drain on Ethan's own power. To finish off Thanos faster, he'd already had to withdraw the Legion entirely.
If things kept going like this, even a victory would come at the cost of nearly every local hero on this battlefield. Kamar-Taj's entire order could end up wiped out here — Ethan had already seen a number of sorcerers and Wakandan soldiers fall.
And Ethan genuinely couldn't spare the attention to fix it himself. The only option he could think of was calling in backup.
But there was a problem: his Exclusive Skill, On Your Right, could only summon five people at a time.
Even at Hell's Kitchen's strength, five reinforcements might not be nearly enough.
What do I even do here?
While Ethan was busy keeping Thanos pinned down—
"Ethan! Think of something, quick! One more second without help and your good buddy here is about to check out!"
Ethan froze at the sound — and that split-second of distraction cost him a solid punch straight from Thanos.
Elsewhere on the field, Strange and the Avengers were fighting a slow, losing retreat.
"Is there anything left we can even try? Even your own friend can't handle Thanos," Tony said, brow furrowed.
"If there's really nothing else — you should just go home. If you leave, at least Thanos won't be able to complete his set of six," Steve suggested.
"You think I don't want to go home?! I can't! Only Ethan has a way to reach the Ancient One and get us sent back!" Strange had dropped all pretense of composure by this point. Of course he wanted to leave — but there was no way out, and he was every bit as terrified and out of options as anyone else here.
"Is there anything else we can try against two Thanoses at once, Mr. Stephen?" Spider-Man asked Doctor Strange, a note of despair creeping into his voice, hoping their own team's resident strategist might have an answer.
Their original plan had been to reclaim the Gauntlet Home-Thanos had discarded and hand it to Thor, using the Infinity Stones' own power against him. But even though Home-Thanos had thrown the gauntlet aside, he wasn't about to let anyone else so much as touch it.
That was when Doctor Strange turned to Strange. "Give me the Time Stone. It might be our only chance."
He already knew this particular Strange hadn't yet mastered the Time Stone's power, didn't know how to wield time magic himself. If Doctor Strange took it instead, there might — however slim — be an opening.
Strange refused instantly, without a second's hesitation. "What, hand you the Time Stone so you can just surrender it to Thanos all over again? Not a chance. Besides — we haven't lost yet!"
The Avengers' hearts sank a little further at that. Of course they'd lost — the writing was already on the wall. Was there really any hope left at all?
Strange spun around and shouted toward Ethan instead. "Ethan! Quit playing dead! Call your people! Get your Hell's Kitchen brothers over here, now!"
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