POV Rio
Once the Queen was killed, the Hive started to collapse into a massive puddle of sludge. I wasn't entirely sure why it happened, but I was just happy the issue was resolved. Videos of some of the battles were posted online to spread our fame, and so far, the reception has been quite strong. Sure, some groups were trying to discredit us, but that was always going to happen.
Shield was handling the cleanup, though in this case, there was basically nothing to clean up, as practically nothing was left behind, which was great news for them, as it meant less paperwork and they could head back to doing their business sooner rather than later. Tony even had a chat with Fury about their mutual problem. Now, there was a coalition built for one purpose. Eradicating Hydra.
But that would take some time for them to get all their ducks in a row. I was busy heading off to do something else. I had finally come to a decision. I would collect the Infinity Stones now. At least those I can find now. To accomplish this, I had been programming the Pillars to allow teleportation anywhere I had the coordinates for. It took a lot of work and some assistance from Tony, but I finally managed to transfer the contents of the Millennium Falcon's Navicomputer over to the Pillars. Now it was time to start collecting some shiny rocks.
'Or are they minerals?'
Scientific names aside, my first stop was Morag.
WOOOOSH
A large portal opens up, and through it I see a massive ocean world. I recalibrate the portal to take me to the surface, and when the next portal opens, I see the ocean very closely. I repeat this several more times to get a feel for how best to do this and to also get used to making portals to such distant planets. Then, when I was satisfied, I hopped into the ocean just above where the Temple should be, according to the compass.
Kerploosh
With the Shifter's Belt, I was fine to traverse the water. I even swapped into the Nahdar form to gain some extra speed. Finding the temple was easy, as it was a straight swim down. It was also decently vacant.
'Interesting.'
Ignoring the absence of life, I made my way to the vault where the orb was. Then I started placing doors around me to create air pockets. Slowly, I built a 6-meter cube around the door I placed to create a pocket devoid of water. I look around the door for a release mechanism, but quickly realise there is no such thing. The tide operated the door. As long as the tide stayed high, the door would remain closed.
"Oh well, I tried," I say while drawing my lightsaber.
Could I mine through the door? Yes, was there also likely a better way to get through? Also yes. But who wouldn't use this chance to cut through a door with a lightsaber, even if only once? I'm only human. Well, okay, actually, I'm an elf, but I got the heart of a man.
After much longer than I would like to admit, I finally cut through the massive stone door and into the vault. I notice some alarms were set off, and I was fairly sure some drones were attempting to breach the cube I made, but they would be doing that for a long time. I walk over to the orb and deactivate the stasis field before storing the orb. Then I leave.
I was tempted to leave a trap or trick for whoever came for the orb after me, but I couldn't be bothered. Instead, it was time to head to the next stone's location. After I went home. As the next one was the hardest for now.
I return home and then calibrate the portal to send me to Thanos' Sanctuary.
"Okay, come on, Rio, you can do this. No more Colombian nights," I joke to ease my worries.
I turn into a Xenomorph, and as soon as the portal opens, I am through, and the portal closes almost immediately. I hide under the Invisibility Cloak for a while as several patrol craft come to investigate the disturbance. They fly around until landing and looking around the area. I sneak aboard one of the Chitauri ships and wait for them to finish finding nothing. When they do, they get back on the ship, and we fly back to their base.
As we near the central compound, I hop off the ship and onto Firebolt, as I know they won't head back to HQ completely, but rather the main ship. I grab a smaller piece of the asteroid and drag it alongside me towards the HQ, letting go before we hit the ground so I can softly land. A few ships fly around and spot the fallen asteroid, and move on.
'Okay, phase one done.'
I move silently while invisible deeper into the compound, checking the compass every so often to orient myself. Thankfully, Thanos didn't seem to let the average Chitauri wander around, so I rarely had to dodge anyone, though with my wall crawling abilites I was fine anyway. Eventually, I find what I was looking for... behind a stasis field, one hooked up to a lot of alarms and defences.
'Sigh. This is going to take a while.'
Seven Hours Later...
Snip
I finally cut the last wire giving me access to the Mind Stone, or rather the Sceptre that holds it. But even after getting access to it, I didn't immediately grab it. I did a few more checks to avoid the last few defences; these ones were magic. I could disable them, but I didn't have the time, so I had to brute force it.
BOOOM
I store the Sceptre and start making a run for it. Or crawl for it, I guess. Teleportation magic wouldn't work in here, and neither would the Pillars. So I had to get enough distance to do either.
Smash
The wall is shattered as a hulking beast of an alien smashes the wall and looks around for me. But seeing as I was crawling as fast as my limbs would take me under the cloak the didn't spot me. But there was no telling how long that would last.
Right as I reach the exit, I have to dodge an attack from Proxima Midnight as she slashes at me.
"Huh? I swore something was there?" Proxima says with visible confusion.
I sneak past her and get outside right as a swarm of Chitauri flood the hallways and surrounding area. I don't even think about sticking around as I continue crawling away as fast as I can, as the sounds of the Chitauri would drown out any sense someone might use to detect me. Not that it would work, given I didn't make any sounds while moving, and I had masked my scent, not that Xenomorphs have much of a scent.
It takes another two hours to escape far enough that I could open a portal and escape. I could have escaped sooner, but I wanted to be extra cautious as Thanos was likely furious that he lost his only Infinity Stone. The portal slams shut behind me, and I take a breather.
'I hated doing that.'
The constant stress of being caught by Thanos had nearly given me an ulcer. I know I have to defeat Thanos eventually, but that was a future problem. Thankfully, my next stop was so much easier. I teleported to the Mojave Desert and almost wished for a nuclear winter.
I was here for the Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility. For this mission, I change from a Xenomorph into Ron Weasley. If I somehow get spotted, they'll only find a random redhead who doesn't exist in this world. It also helped that I never had a reason to use this form after this.
The project to research the Tesseract had been fully funded after the whole resource crisis started. On the surface, it was to have a third source of energy that wasn't Stark or Wayne-controlled. In reality, it was a bunch of monkeys poking a box that had the power to destroy Earth and hoping they didn't blow themselves up.
Finding the Tesseract was easy; I didn't even need the compass. The Tesseract gives off enough energy to be detected from the other side of the galaxy, depending on how active it is. Once I reached the Tesseract, I had to marvel at how pretty it looked.
"My precious," I joke in a whisper with wriggling hands.
'Hippity Hoppity, this is now my property.'
I take the cube and teleport right away.
'Three down, three to go.'
My next stop was Vormir, but this time I wasn't alone.
"You're my cutie-patootie lovie-dovie honey-bunny," says the woman I captured, who ran an underground cannibal cult and liked feeding human flesh to unaware people via a soup kitchen.
"You're my heartie-smartie smoochie-woochie baby-waby," says the man I captured, who used to be a Catholic Priest with a penchant for little boys as young as 4.
"Ugh. The sooner you guys die, the better," I say with disgust.
"I have a special someone. A kissy-wissy snuggy-wuggy sugar bear," says the woman in a syrupy tone.
"You're my cuddly-wuddly boopsie-woopsie pumpkin pie," responds the man in a similar tone.
"I'm starting to regret this," I say as we reach the summit of the Soul Stone mountain.
"Rio Pines, son of Gaia Everfree, and..." Red Skull looks at the two lovebirds, and even he recoils in disgust.
"I know why you brought these... things, so please get this over with," Red Skull pleads.
"I love you, shnooky-lumps," says the woman.
"No, I love you, Shmoopy-doo," the man responds.
"Ugh, 10, 4, 6, 2, 7, 8, 13, 7, 9, 2, 3," I say, and the eyes of both of them go blank.
They walk to the cliff and start to fight the numbers control as they resist the orders to sacrifice one of them for the Soul Stone. But eventually, the woman is pushed over the cliff.
"Shmoopy-doo!" the man screams in anguish.
A large storm of thunder clouds appears in the sky, and a beam of energy launches into the sky. The man's tear-stricken eyes go blank, and in his fist appears the Soul Stone.
"Accio!" I cast and steal the Stone right before he can fully process what happened.
"Y-YOU! You did this! You gave me something I cannot live without just to take it away from me!" the man says now that he is completely free of control.
"From where you're standing, this must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck. But the truth is..." I say.
His eyes widen in fear as I pull out the Silverballer.
"The game was rigged from the start," I finish while blowing his brains out.
I incinerate his corpse, leaving nothing behind, before doing the same to the woman down below. Once I was done with that, I noticed that Red Skull was gone.
"Ah, too bad, I thought he would have been a great present for Ghost Rider," I say with disappointment, but not that much.
Once I had everything and nothing else needed to be done, I went home after a job well done.