THE DEATH SEASON ▹ final avengers ✓

21 | the greatest failure

Steve strides into the hut with Natasha and Svetlana on either side, the family's features all dark and angry.

The Avengers are working together once more. But it doesn't even matter. It won't change anything.

Because when Rocket kicks the now sliced off hand over, he finds that the gauntlet is empty.

"Oh no..."

Eyes narrowing, Steve demands, "Where are they?"

"Answer the question." Carol hisses in the titan's ear.

Breathing deeply, Thanos groans out, "The universe required correction. After that, the Stones served no purpose, I had someone else for that."

"You murdered trillions!"

Thanos vehemently spits back, "You should be grateful!"

"You murdered my father!" Svetlana bares her teeth as she hisses, "You murdered my family, my friends, everyone lost someone! And you suppose we will be grateful?"

"What's wrong, little fox?" The titan's mocking eyes land on her small form, "Are you not grateful you survived instead of your father?"

All the breath leaves her lungs. Her ears start to ring. Her hands tremble.

Svetlana simply stands there for a long moment, shaking and quivering with pain that quickly burns into bright red rage. Releasing a shaken scream, the girl sharply snaps out her blade and swiftly raises her arm, living for the moment she can slit his throat wide open. But Natasha suddenly snatches tightly onto her wrist, yanking her back and holding her tightly in place.

"Let me do this!" Svet cries out, fighting to be freed, "Let me go, Mama!"

"No! Not yet. We need answers." Natasha has tears in her eyes as she lowly demands of the titan, "Where are the Stones?"

Thanos simply smirks.

And then suddenly a strange sound echoes all around them. The bird-like creatures in the trees go silent. The waterfalls stop rushing. The light in the sky darks. The lush and green planet around them turns red and begins to nearly melt away, reality becoming so very disappointing as it leaves nothing but an ashen, burnt, and desolate world behind. The world that was once a home to thousands of people has now been destroyed. Something obliterated this planet.

No. Not something. Someone.

The ground begins to tremble.

The wind shifts.

As a light flashes in the grey purple sky, it starts silent before releasing an echoing boom when someone lands hard in the dirt, sending dust towards the remaining Avengers.

And from the light, a woman.

Unsure whether to feel sad or scared, Svetlana's jaw slackens, "Is that-,"

"It's her."

Lisa Stark-Udaku lifts herself up from the dirt and the debris around her, her swirling blue eyes slowly rolling up to look at the planet's new arrivals. Her head twitches to the side and an eerie smirk cuts onto her lips. Her bleeding hands tremble into a bright glow and her boots crunch through the withering bones and the broken homes as she approaches them.

Gold beads are threaded through her very specific shade of brown hair and she wears thick intricate armor, but her eyes are hollow and her cheeks are sunken and her bones jut out in odd places. Fresh burns cover her right arm and the side of her face, and her skin looks nearly cracked apart in places where the power was just too much to contain inside.