V. THE MAD TITAN
__________
Fear. Anger. Apprehension. Terror. Fury. All of them hit Luna in the span of a second, coursing through her blood, inhabiting every inch of her body at the sight of Him. The Mad Titan. Thanos. He stood large and purple and alien, but strangely human in a way that was uncomfortable. He had on barely any armor, he didn't need to.
His left hand, larger than Luna's head, was covered in a golden gauntlet. The stones gleamed in their places. Red, orange, blue and purple. A purple familiar to Luna. The color that made Raava so uncomfortable, making her thrash inside of her Avatar.
There were two still missing. One belonged to Dr. Strange, the other to the Vision. That was a good sign, Luna decided. That meant that the war on Earth had not yet been lost. If they stopped Thanos right here and now, they would win and trillions of lives would be saved.
The portal behind Thanos closed with a twist of his massive hand. His robust head tilted upward, to gaze on the broken ruins of his children's ship.
Dr. Strange shared one last look with the mismatched team. "Oh, yeah," he said. "You're much more of a Thanos."
Luna cringed behind the rock that Dr. Strange was lounging on as she heard Thanos' loud footstep coming closer. Quill, Mantis and Drax had spread out further and Tony and Peter had taken the high ground. It was Dr. Strange and the Avatar who were right in front of the Titan, one hidden and one in plain sight.
"I take it the Maw is dead," Thanos spoke, his deep voice echoing through the wasteland. "This day extracts a heavy toll. Still," he continued. "He accomplished his mission."
"You may regret that," Dr. Strange returned. "He brought you face-to-face with the Master of the Mystic Arts."
Again, the vibrations from Thanos' footsteps coursed through Luna's body and when she closed her eyes, she could almost see him standing there. Silently, she willed Raava to settle down.
"And where do you think he brought you?" Thanos asked.
"Let me guess," Dr. Strange began. "Your home?"
At this, a sad chuckle came from the Titan. "It was," he said.
With a clenching of his fist and a flash of red light, the environment changed. The grass grew green, the ancient ruins flew back into the sky and the pollution was sucked out of the air, making place for blue skies and white clouds. Where they stood, used to be a bustling metropolis, the home of a civilization.
"Titan was like most planets," he explained. "Too many mouths, not enough to go around. And when we faced extinction, I offered a solution."
"Genocide..."
"But random, dispassionate, fair to rich and poor alike. They called me a madman."
Luna's jaw clenched, her hand shook in their fists. It took all she had not to say something, do something, anything. This man, this monster, killed Loki and Heimdall. He was going to kill Vision, and Wanda, lovely Wanda, would rather die than let that happen. And Luna would rather die than let that happen. She refrained, the power building in her ebbing away, but not too far. She would need it soon enough.
"And what I predicted came to pass," Thanos said, and with a red flash the beautiful metropolis disappeared to let reality take its place.
"Congratulations," Dr. Strange returned. "You're a prophet."
"I'm a survivor."
"Who wants to murder trillions."
"With all six stones, I could simply snap my fingers. They would all cease to exist. I call that... mercy."
"And then what?" Dr. Strange stood from his rock.
"I'd finally rest and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe," Thanos said calmly, his voice softer than anyone could have predicted. "The hardest choices require the strongest wills."
"I think you'll find our will equal to yours," Dr. Strange spoke, banging his fists together, the red sparks of his magic flying away from them.
"Our?"
From above, Ironman entered, pushing a large piece of rubble from the ship right towards Thanos. It crashed into the ground, into Thanos, pushing him where he belonged. That was the team's cue.
Tony's voice crackled through the comms, "Piece of cake, Quill."
"Yeah, if you're goal was to piss him off," Quill answered, flying out of his hiding place.
The rest followed suit. Luna ran up beside Dr. Strange, but before she had a chance to say anything, an explosion of purple energy blasted apart the piece of ship and Thanos stood at the center, unharmed and, above all, pissed off. His eyes caught Tony and with a twist of his hand, the rubble in the air turned into a large flock of birds, going after Ironman like a rain of bullets.
Thanos might have been big and powerful, but he was only one person and they were going to take advantage of that fact.
Peter swung onto the battlefield, webbing the Titan's eyes shut. While Thanos was distracted, Drax slid beneath his legs, slashing at his ankles. When finally Thanos could see again and try to grab at Drax, Dr. Strange stepped out of a portal right in front of him, flanking him with a blade of pure magic. And when Drax was thrown aside like a paper towel, Quill kept him distracted with his blasters from a distance for long enough so that Luna could take his place. She manipulated the ground she stood on to raise her up from the ground, giving her the height advantage. Rock after rock she threw at him, and each time he deflected.
It was chaos. Seven against one and they were still struggling to land a single hit.
Dr. Strange stepped back, overseeing the battlefield, opening up portals when needed, anything to try and confuse Thanos, to disorient him. Quill stepped on platforms of rock, made by Luna, and jumped over Thanos, planting a bomb on his back. With a quick middle finger, he fell back into a portal. The bomb exploded with electricity.
Thanos stumbled.
That one misstep was all Luna needed. She grabbed the electricity out of the air, making the shock last longer.
"His fist!" she yelled. "Don't let him close it!"
Dr. Strange's cape responded to her call, wrapping itself around the gauntlet.
More portals opened up around Thanos, each time spitting out Spiderman in a different place before catching him once again. Until Thanos caught on to the pattern and grabbed Spiderman mid-air in a chokehold, slamming him onto the ground and picking him back up again, throwing him into Dr. Strange. Thanos growled deeply, anger rolling off of him in waves, and ripped off the cape.
Luna suddenly realized she was the only one in his vicinity at the moment. With a sprint she launched herself at him, cannons of earth and fire following her every move. Thanos raised a shield in response, each missile that hit it turning into snow on the other side.
"Oh, buddy," Luna spoke, gaining his attention. "Wrong move."
Opening the floodgates, the powers streamed through her veins, filling every inch of her body, making her more spirit than human. Her feet left the ground, her eyes opening with a bright light. The melting snow lifted from the ground, swirling together to form an ever-growing bubble of water. Floating higher and higher in the air, Earth, Water, Fire and Air met to embrace the Avatar like a raging halo.
For a moment, Thanos could do nothing but stare. But that was only for a single moment. The stones on his gauntlet glinted menacingly.
Luna roared and charged him. Tony joined her from above, launching missiles from his suit. They used everything. Metal, Electricity, everything Luna could find. Dr. Strange and Peter rejoined them, together with Drax and Quill.
They only had one shot at this. They could not fail.
Luna bent the water around Thanos' gauntlet, freezing it in place. Only a second later, it burst apart in purple light. The ground beneath them rumbled, suddenly gaping open like a hungry mouth coming to swallow Thanos whole, but with the reality stone he could simply make it undone. With a wave of her arms, wings of fire spread behind Luna. Power burst out of her with a scream as she directed it to engulf Thanos. It only stayed in place for a few seconds before it funneled into his stones.
Using that same momentum, Thanos released the tsunami of fire back at Luna. She only had a second to pull up a wall of earth around herself. Still, the outside of her jacket scorched and sizzled. With an exhausted huff, she pulled the burning jacket off and threw it aside.
Spiderman grabbed the gauntlet with a strand of his web, pulling it down to the ground, but Thanos grabbed the web for himself and dragged Peter through the air, punching him away and sending him flying.
Out of nowhere, a ship came barreling down on Thanos. He had no time to react, to do anything. It hit him square in the chest, dragging him along across the ground. As it skidded to a stop, the front window broke into a million pieces and a woman—at least, it looked like one—barreled out, not stopping a second to go after Thanos. She was blue, parts of her face gleaming with the familiar shine of metal.
Luna took that as her sign to take a breather. Tony landed beside her.
"You know her?" he asked.
"No. It seems like they know each other, though," she answered, motioning to Thanos and the blue lady engaged in combat.
"What the hell is she doing here?" Quill's voice came through the comms.
"Quill!" Luna spoke harshly. "Who the fuck is the blue chick?"
"Her name's Nebula," he replied, out of breath and still soaring through the air. "She's his daughter and Gamora's sister!"
"Dude, I think she wants to kill him!" Luna yelled back.
"Then let her!" he shouted.
She looked at Tony and shrugged, before joining the fight once again.
It seemed like the arrival of the scary-looking daughter had changed the tide in their favor. It was clear that Thanos had not expected her to show up and his guard was severely weakened because of it.
Dr. Strange entangled Thanos' gloved hand in magical bonds, using all his strength to keep him in place. Drax once again slid beneath Thanos, kicking the back of his knee in, making him fall to his knees. Luna ran into the fray, binding Thanos' other massive hand in metal of her own, pulling it in the opposite direction as Dr. Strange. Peter swung around him, webbing his shoulders together in a tight cocoon.
They had him. Thanos was trapped with nowhere to go.
Ironman descended, landing beside Dr. Strange. Simultaneously, Dr. Strange released his bonds and Tony grabbed onto the gauntlet, using all his strength to try and pry it from Thanos' fingers. But Thanos was strong, stronger than them. Luna could feel her feet begin to slip on the sand. Quickly, she made her feet sink into the ground, securing her in place.
It was time for Mantis to do her thing. Dr. Strange opened another portal right above Thanos and Mantis fell through, onto his shoulders. She grabbed the sides of his face in an iron grip, her fingers on his temples. Thanos struggled against the might of a team united. He screamed and thrashed against Mantis' empathic abilities.
"Sleep..." she muttered. "Sleep... Sleep!" Her antennae lit up, her face scrunched in concentration until it was Thanos' eyes that glazed over with a white hue.
"Is he under?" Tony asked. "Don't let up."
"Be quick!" she grunted. "He is very strong."
"Kiddo!" Luna yelled through heavy grunts, keeping Thanos in place. "Peter, you're the strong one!"
Peter released the webbing he was doing and rushed to Tony's side.
"She can't hold him much longer. Let's go," Tony instructed. Together, they began to take the gauntlet away from Thanos. Even with Peter's strength, they struggled to pry the gauntlet off.
"What? Is it super-glued to his fucking skin or something, take it off!" Luna yelled through gritted teeth.
"We're fucking trying, Luna!" Tony screamed back.
"We gotta open his fingers!" Peter yelled.
Quill flew above them, returning from being flung away. Landing in front of Thanos, he took slow, determined steps forward. "I thought you'd be harder to catch," he said cockily. "For the record, this was my plan."
"Partly!" Luna reminded him.
"Shut up, let me have this," he replied quietly. "You're not so strong now, huh?" he continued, getting up in Thanos' face. "Where is Gamora?"
A voice as deep as hell came from Thanos' throat. "My Gamora..." he forced out in between groans and grunts.
"No bullshit! Where is she?"
"Hey, Pete, calm down there!" Luna warned, feeling Thanos pull harder against her grip.
"He is in anguish," Mantis relied the information she got from being able to read his emotions only from touching him.
"Good," Quill said.
"He..." a whimper came from Mantis. "He mourns."
Luna's head snapped up, her gaze accidentally connecting with Nebula's and even though she had never seen the part-robot/part-alien before, she knew what the look on her face meant. She understood now why Nebula had come here to Titan to kill her father.
"Quill..." Luna began apprehensively.
"What does this monster have to mourn?" Drax' voice was like a bulldozer as he strained against Thanos' strength.
"A daughter," Luna spoke.
"Gamora," Nebula confirmed.
Something broke on Quill's face as he looked back at Nebula. "What?"
"He took her to Vormir," Nebula explained. "He came back with the Soul stone. But she didn't."
"Okay, Quill," Tony began, his mask retreating. "You gotta cool it right now. You understand?"
"Quill!" Luna pleaded. "Peter! Don't!"
"We almost got this off, Quill!" Tony warned desperately.
Quill's eyes pricked with tears, his face shaking with anger as he looked at Thanos. "Tell me she's lying... ASSHOLE! Tell me you didn't do it!" he yelled in his face.
"I..." Thanos began. "had... to..."
"No, you didn't—No, you didn't..." Quill said, the look in his eyes lost. He stepped back and for a moment Luna thought that the crises had been averted. Until Quill reared his fist back and punched Thanos in his face. Again. And Again. He rammed into him with roars of anger.
"Peter! Stop it!"
"Stop! Stop, Quill!"
All of them yelled at him, straining against an awakening Thanos. Tony let go of the gauntlet, already halfway off Thanos' hand, to restrain Quill.
Peter still held the gauntlet, using his bodyweight to pull it off. "It's coming, it's coming!" he yelled. "I got it!"
But the damage was done. Thanos was awake and too angry to go back to sleep. He flung Mantis from his shoulders, and grabbed the gauntlet from Peter. Peter was strong, but not that strong. One by one the restraints keeping Thanos in place snapped. Drax was thrown aside, just like Luna and Dr. Strange.
The fighting from before resumed, but the team no longer stood together, no longer worked like a single organism. It didn't take long for Thanos to gain the upper hand. The Power stone released a wave of energy, blasting all of them back. Tony was the first to recover and flew straight at Thanos, only to be ricochet back again.
Thanos raised a single, gloved hand. The moon in the sky glowed with a purple energy. Then, pieces were breaking off, charging through the atmosphere, headed straight for Tony. They came down like missiles of flame and destruction. Luna sprinted along the ruptured ground, pushing herself between Tony and the flaming boulder, raising her arms to protect them.
They spent a minute being buried alive, heaving and retching from the impact.
"You good?" she asked, the sand clogging her throat.
"No, you?" Tony replied.
"Same."
"Get us out?"
"Yeah, sure." With a deep breath, Luna braced herself and ripped the ground open above them, launching herself and Tony back above the surface.
When the dust cleared and the moon stopped crashing down on them with such ferocity, Dr. Strange and Thanos were going toe to toe. Tony put a hand on Luna's shoulder to stop her from intervening. She had never seen anything like it:
A wall of mirrors charging at Thanos, suddenly turning into a black hole racing towards Dr. Strange only to be transformed into a storm of butterflies. The wizard floated feet above the ground, extending his arms, each second growing another pair of them. No, not just arms. In the blink of an eye, the whole sky was filled with duplicates of Dr. Strange. Each of them, close to a hundred, made the same motion and cast the same spell. A hundred ropes of magic extended towards Thanos, wrapping around him tightly.
With a clench of his fingers, Thanos dissipated all of them. He had the real Dr. Strange by the throat.
"Now?" Luna asked, watching Thanos grab the duplicate amulet around the wizard's neck and crushing the fake stone within.
"Now," Tony confirmed as Thanos threw Dr. Strange aside like a ragdoll.
Luna smirked, letting her eyes light up once again.
Ironman and the Avatar charged through the air. Tony threw a device in the air, Luna using her metal bending to direct it to the palm of Thanos' Infinity gauntlet. They landed in front of him.
"You throw another moon at me and I'm gonna lose it," Tony snarked.
"Stark..." Thanos spoke. "Avatar."
"You know us?"
"I do," he answered. "You're not the only ones cursed with knowledge."
Loki, Luna thought. He had worked for Thanos. A sudden pang of grief hit her.
"My only curse is you," Tony replied, the rockets in his back activating, their target Thanos.
All three of them knew that that would not be the finishing blow. Thanos readied himself, Luna and Tony raced forward. When the explosions cleared, they stood face to face.
It was a flurry of blows. Thanos was flanked on either side, having to twist and turn to hit either of them. Tony was at his front, his nanotech suit morphing to his every need. Luna was behind Thanos, using the ground beneath them, the air around them and the fire from within her to retaliate against Thanos' heavy blows and the stones' powerful abilities. The device on his palm only stopped him from using the stones for so long, until he managed to rip it off.
Luna kicked the back of his knee, sending him to the ground. Tony used this distraction to his advantage and morphed his arm into a hammer, whacking it against Thanos' cheek. Thanos hunched over, his finger going to the cut on his cheek.
"All that for a drop of blood," Thanos mocked. In a millisecond, he stood up, swinging his arm back against Luna, sending her flying away.
As she stood up to return to fight him, the blue stone on the gauntlet lit up. The last thing she saw before being sucked through the portal, was Thanos' blade piercing through Tony's stomach.
"TONY!" she screamed, her throat raw. But it was too late, the portal had already closed in front of her.
Luna fell to her knees, her power ebbing away once more. After a good few seconds, she finally regained the strength to look up. She was still on Titan, that much she knew, but there was no sign of the fight anywhere around her except for the broken moon in the sky.
"—una—" a voice crackled broken through the comms.
"Tony? Strange? Pete?" she yelled back frantically. "I don't know where I am!"
"—ange—stone—anos!"
"I don't understand! Please!" she sobbed, the weight of everything dawning on her.
"Tha—one! Time—one!"
With the little control she had left within her, she dropped to the ground, burying her hands in the sand. Closing her eyes, she concentrated. She could feel everything within the ground of Titan, the constructs beneath the surface, the caves and fossils. But also the invisible vibrations. They were faint, but they were there.
She made it back, crawling to the top of a hill, overlooking the entire battlefield.
Thanos alone stood on his two feet. A wave of power radiated from the Titan as he looked curiously at the new addition to his golden gauntlet. The Time stone. Then he smirked contently and opened a portal before him, a grassy landscape full of chaos on the other side. They could do nothing but watch as the portal closed behind Thanos.
Luna ran down the hill, to where Tony lay against a rock, his wound closed up with his nanotech. Dr. Strange was not far off.
"What happened? she asked as soon as she came within earshot. "Strange!" she yelled in his face, shaking his shoulders. "What did you do!"
He looked at her, something vacant in his eyes. "What I had to."
Slowly but surely, everybody crowded together in silence. Nobody spoke, everything had already been said. There was no use in fighting each other, not when they had just lost the fight.
Luna crawled over to Tony, falling beside him against the rock. She took the water from her own tears and bent it over his wound. It glowed for a second and died down, healing him wordlessly. She slumped against his side, resting her head on his shoulder. He let her.
Nothing happened for a minute... and then two, five, ten, fifteen minutes.
That's when Luna felt it. A wave of power, something so close to what Lee had felt thousands of years ago, rolling through the universe like a tsunami.
Drax was the first to notice that something was wrong. His hand was held in front of him as he looked at it strangely, flexing his fingers.
"Drax?" Quill asked, still limping from the fight. "Buddy?"
Little slivers began floating into the sky, away from Drax's hand. Then, Drax's hand was gone and his arm was following. All anybody could do was stare as he turned to dust.
"Guys!" Quill exclaimed, his eyes frantically following the dust that had taken the place of his friend. "I think—" he was quicker to turn into dust, his sentence cut off by his vocal cords disappearing.
Luna was on high alert, looking wildly as Mantis stumbled forward, toward Nebula, grabbing at the woman with frantic hands. With tears filling those darkened eyes, she turned to dust.
Dr. Strange went quietly, resigned to his fate, watching his dust float into the polluted air.
"Tony?" Luna said loudly, grabbing the man's arm in an iron grip. "I think—" she swallowed deeply. "I think something went wrong. I think something went really wrong."
"We lost?" he simply muttered quietly to himself, watching the wind carry away the dust.
"Mr. Stark?" Peter's quiet voice said from behind them. "Miss. Avatar?"
The two snapped around. Peter was stumbling Tony's way, his face distraught as he watched his hands.
"Kid?" Luna asked, stepping forward.
"I—" his voice broke. "I don't feel so good..." his face turned a ghostly white, tears in his eyes as he looked into Tony's, falling forward into his arms. "I don't feel so good, Mr. Stark."
Luna choked back a sob as she saw the tips of the boy's fingers turning into a flaky dust.
Tony hugged him close, his face unresponsive as he laid Peter down against a rock.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Mr. Stark..." Peter repeated to himself, the realization that he was going to die falling over his cheeks with each tear.
Tony held onto him for as long as he could. And then Peter was gone. Ashes to ashes. There, Tony stayed crouched, face in his hands.
Luna stepped forward, her own stomach churning with an unfamiliar feeling. She put a caring hand on his shoulder, squeezing to make sure he knew she was there, but when the churning in her stomach began to feel more like knives being stabbed into her abdomen over and over and over again, the grip was to make sure she could stay upright.
Tony had turned to her, standing up to meet her eyes. "Luna? What's happening?" he asked when she stumbled away from him. "No—NO! Not you too!" he screamed and a man that rarely cried, sobbed. For the kid that wouldn't stop bugging him and the one that had crawled its way into his heart with every sarcastic insult thrown at him.
"I—" she said through gritted teeth, doubling over from the pain. Something was moving through her insides, violently trying to find its way out, but when she looked at her hands, they were still as intact as a day ago. "Okay... I think I'm oka—AAAAAHH!"
Luna let out a primal scream, her knees ripping open as she fell to the ground. Something inside her was moving up, making its way out. Her body convulsed, her arms spread wide, her eyes lighting up with a blazing light. A cloud of dust floated out of her mouth like a feather on the wind. Her eyes died down again.
Luna was left on the ground, feeling as if her very being had been ripped away from her.
Tony fell to the ground in front of her, cradling her to his chest as she heaved and sobbed. "Luna?" he asked quietly as he let go and looked at her. "Talk to me."
"It's—" she choked on the words she somehow knew to be true. "It's Raava. She's gone."
Luna Carter will return in Avengers: Endgame