Hoping for a Hero - part II of II [COMPLETE]

Chapter 4: Thanos

We entered the Bentar and buckled in. "Okay," Rocket turned back in his seat when we had exited the atmosphere. "Who here hasn't been to space."

Out of Rhodes, Thor, Natasha, Danvers, Rogers, and I, the only two who didn't raise their hands were Thor and Danvers.

"Why?" Rhodes asked.

"You better not throw up on my ship."

Natasha looked at me with a raised eyebrow. I shrugged.

Nebula put her hand on the lever and announced, "Approaching jump in three, two, one."

As soon as she pushed down the lever, a bright light filled our vision and the ship was propelled forward. The pressure applied to our bodies didn't last long, but it was enough to spin many of our stomachs until they aggressively churned.

Danvers wasn't winded by the fast travel and easily exited to the spaceship to fly down to the planet. "I'll head down for recon."

While we waited, I braided my hair for combat, but it wasn't long until she returned to fill us in on her observations. "No satellites, no ships, no armies," she said from where she flew before the ship. "No ground defenses of any kind. It's just him."

"And that's enough," Nebula stated.

When we went in after Thanos, he was making dinner. Of course, food was no longer on his mind when Danvers attacked first in a beam of fire and Banner burst up through the floor in his Hulk-sized iron man suit. Thor and Rhodes joined and had him well contained when Natasha, Steve, Rocket, Nebula, and I entered the hut.

The gauntlet that had changed the universe lay on the floor. We came for the stones in that glove, but when Rocket turned it over, we saw that they were gone. "Oh no," he said.

A pit formed in my stomach that I'm sure wasn't a side effect of the space flight. Steve, Natasha, and I exchanged glances that silently asked, "What now?"

Steve took action. "Where are they?" he demanded of Thanos.

Danvers tightened her arm around his neck threateningly, "Answer the question."

"The universe required correction," Thanos began. "And after that, the stones served no purpose beyond temptation."

Banner couldn't take it. "You killed trillions!" he shouted and shoved the Titan roughly.

"You should be grateful."

Natashia's body shook with her anger. "Where are the stones," she demanded.

"Gone." The answer we had all feared. "Reduced to atoms."

"You used them two days ago!" Banner cried.

"I used the stones to destroy the stones. It nearly killed me."

"We wish it had," I muttered under my breath.

"But the work is done. It always will be." Thanos hoisted himself up on his existing arm (the other was lost with the glove) to drive his point home. "I am inevitable."

Rhodes refused to accept it, desperately searching for another solution. "We have to tear this place apart. He has to be lying."

"My father is many things," Nebula made her presence known. "A liar is not one of them."

"Ah," Thanos breathed. "Thank you, daughter." She dropped her eyes to the floor as if ashamed she had spoken. "Perhaps I treated you too harshly."

There was barely any time to process the scene when Thor hastily swung his axe and severed Thanos' head from his body.

I closed my eyes in despair, knowing that there was little hope now for us to make the changes we needed. Thanos may have had more information to give us but we'd never know.

"What?" Banner said, lost and confused.

"What did you do?" Rocket voiced the thought we all shared as we stared at the limp body that lay decapitated on the floor.

"I went for the head," Thor stated between heavy breaths. Seeing nothing else left to do, he turned away from the scene and walked to the door.

The rest of us still stared in disbelief. The room was void of hope or positivity and Cap's head fell in disappointment. The question really was, "What now?"