We stand shoulder to shoulder in the yard, with the main facility at our backs and the endless green lawn of the backyard in front of us.
Facing us is the giant spaceship that Thanos descended from, which now has hundreds, maybe thousands, of creatures pouring out of it. I can see what they look like from here. Rows and rows of horrible crouched-over beasts that almost resemble wolves but with no fur. Their spines stick up sharply from their pinkish skin, and I can hear the lot of them snarling from here. They all stand in rectangular battle formations.
Thanos did not come to chat, I suspect.
Even with all of the Avengers next to me, all in our best suits of armor, I still feel the cold shiver of terror run through me.
I reach over beside me and grab Loki's hand. He looks down at me but I don't look up. I keep my eyes fixed on Thanos, who sits on a golden throne carried on the backs of a dozen of his creatures.
This is the real deal. The climax. The culmination of everything we've been talking about for so long that somehow still didn't seem real.
All of the other battles were child's play. They were, if I'm being honest, almost fun. The thrill of victory. As much as it has scared me, I've had the time of my life learning about my powers and fighting off bad guys. It felt important.
But compared to what is about to happen, what I can sense will happen...nothing has mattered like this. Thanos is here; he isn't just some name to be thrown around. He is here and he wants to kill us.
He wants to kill half of the entire universe. When the Guardians were here, Gamora told us all about his plan for balance. It seemed crazy to me, and so far fetched that it wasn't even scary. Now it doesn't seem so far fetched. Now it's real.
We're fighting for our lives now.
I look to my left and my right down the long line of people standing beside me. Heroes one and all. I feel grateful to be among them, and I love them all with everything I have. I will fight for them with that much too, even if it's the last thing I ever do.
"Guys..." Clint begins but quickly trails off, too stunned by the sight unfolding in front of us to say anything else.
"Well, at least we know what they want." Tony replies, his voice ringing through our connected headsets that are now all turned on.
"We can't let him take any. But we also can't hold him off." Nat adds, stating the obvious.
"We're stuck." Wanda says grimly, after a long pause of silence.
"What do we do?" Banner says in a small voice. He isn't turning into the Hulk just yet, but I suspect we will need him to soon.
Thanos' mutant soldiers continue to form battalions across from us, all while Thanos himself stares at us in the distance with an unmoving face. It feels like his gaze is directly on me. It sends my stomach into knots. I squeeze Loki's hand tighter.
"Tony? Cap?" Rhodey says, looking for wisdom from our unofficial leaders.
"I don't know. I guess we fight for as long as we can." Cap says, and it sends fear through my spine to hear him so unsure.
"I believe it's rather obvious what we do." Loki chimes in and I finally snap my eyes away from Thanos to look up at him curiously.
"Explain, now. No more vague statements." Tony snaps.
"We have five Infinity Stones. He has the gauntlet and the power stone." Loki recaps the situation.
"All that means to me is that everything Thanos needs to kill half of the universe is right here in this yard." Tony says in reply.
"It means we need the gauntlet." Loki casually adds as if it's obvious.
"So the plan is get the gauntlet and destroy it." Thor says to confirm Loki's plan.
"No." Loki says.
"No?" Thor questions, and now all of us are lost. Suddenly Loki's plan hits me like a ton of bricks, and I know exactly what he's suggesting we do.
"Tony, we can't beat them like this." Loki says, taking on an almost pleading tone. Hearing Loki call him Tony and not Stark is odd, and it shows he's desperate. No more bitterness or tricks or teasing remarks. We all need each other right now.
"He's right, we shouldn't destroy it. That would be pointless. Thanos would just make a new one and take the stones anyways." I finally give my opinion to back Loki up and to give what I know is an insane idea of his some more credibility.
"Then what do we do?" Cap asks.
"We finish the gauntlet. Before Thanos can." Loki says what I knew he was going to say, and everyone but me is shocked.
"We end this." I add to break the following silence as everyone processes the implications of this idea.
"There's so much that could go wrong." Cap sighs, in a mental battle with himself.
"If we try and finish the gauntlet we might fail, but if we don't we definitely will." I tell him the honest truth. If we don't make it, Thanos will. There's no stopping it. So we either have the gauntlet on our side, or we stall for awhile until it's eventually Thanos'.
A long pause.
"You're right." Cap finally says.
I feel Natasha crane her neck beside me to look past me at someone else.
"But that means we need...all of the stones." She says, and I realize she's looking at Vision.
"We'll have to take the power stone from Thanos somehow. We already have all of the others so it'll be easy to- Oh. Right." Clint begins, but stops himself when he also realizes what Nat is saying.
"No. Not an option." Wanda snaps, stepping forward out of line and turning to face us all. Her face seethes with anger and worry.
"After we acquire the gauntlet...I'll meet you inside, Cassidy." Vision says in a low tone, dropping his gaze to avoid Wanda's piercing stare.
"Vis, no. You don't have to do that." Wanda tells him, grabbing his hands in hers.
The only way we can finish the gauntlet is with the Mind Stone. We need Vision to give it up, even though it means we might lose him. We'll definitely lose him for a little while, at least. Especially if Thanos gets the stone and we can't put it back in Vision's head.
"I don't have to, no. But I'm going to. Because I should." Vision says, straightening up and looking as though he has irreversibly made up his mind. Wanda doesn't argue anymore, she just gently brushes his cheek with the palm of her hand. She looks at him as though she's trying to memorize every inch of his face.
I look up at Loki and immediately know the feeling. Some people in life are too important to forget.
Loki catches me looking at him and stares back at me, looking as fearful as I've ever seen him. My heart aches for him.
"So it's decided then. Get the Power Stone. Get the gauntlet. Whoever has them meet Cassidy in the vault to assemble it." Clint tells everyone, calling me out specifically because I'm the one that can manipulate and touch the stones.
A low and stead rumble begins to shake the ground, and my head snaps up to see Thanos has raised one of his big, ugly hands into the air.
The beasts march forward. Slowly.
Loki and I look back at each other, and fear turns to desperation in both of us. If this is the last time I get to hold his hand and look into his beautiful eyes, I better make it count.
"I love you." I tell him, knowing the words are as true as they ever have been.
"I love you." He replies.
We nod at one another, take a deep breath together, and then turn with our Avenger family and begin walking towards battle together.
A giant glittering blue shield suddenly encases the entirety of Tony's giant property, stretching to the horizon. It locks us in his yard, and it locks Thanos' army in.
"Sorry. I figure if we're going to die we should bring as few civilians with us as possible." He says solemnly. Nobody argues.
We march forwards in unison, staring an army in the face. I feel terrified. But I realize quickly that my fear isn't for myself but for my friends. My family.
"I have your backs. All of you." I say into the microphone, feeling the chill of fear stinging in my chest. My voice trembles.
"We'll win this one the way we always do. Together." Cap replies.
"Last one to kill an alien is a rotten egg." Tony jokes to lighten the tension. I look over at him and give him a strained smile. It doesn't reach my eyes.
Just then a glittering portal opens at the end of our line besides Tony. Doctor Strange and a dozen of his wizard friends walk out in unison and join us. He nods at Tony. Nobody says anything, but I feel the smallest bit of relief bloom in all of us.
"Okay, Avengers. Together." Tony says, and on cue all of us begin jogging rather than walking. The aliens respond, and soon enough we're charging at one another.
I take a moment before I leap into battle to tuck my necklace under my skin tight black suit, mostly to hide the Soul Stone but also because I couldn't bear it losing that necklace.
I feel the hot surge of adrenaline course through my veins as we run forwards, and I kick off of the ground to fly forward and leap ahead of everyone.
I land right in front of the first battalion of aliens, and when I land I send a blast of magnetism off of the ground that sends the first few rows of beasts flying backwards. Thor had a similar idea, and lands besides me with a blast of lightning that matches mine in force.
With the alien ranks broken, the rest of the team behind us can move in and begin the fight with the advantage on our team.
Chaos descends on us from all sides. The bloodshed is immediate.
These beasts have no weapons other than beady red eyes that paralyze me with fear and razor sharp teeth and claws. They're bigger than any dog I've ever seen but smaller than a leopard. Still, they're muscular and pack a heavy punch.
I use my spear first, sending it flying through the air, cutting holes in the chests of as many creatures as I can. I pull out a knife and throw it at a beast charging at me and it sticks, landing in the thing's head. I shudder as blood gushes from its eyes.
They aren't hard to kill, but there are just so many of them that two more take the place of any that fall.
I scream out in pain as I feel claws scrape across my back. I fall to the ground and flip over. A wolf-like muzzle lunges for my throat and I throw my hands up in defense. Strong jaws close around my forearm, digging into the flesh, and I scream again, much louder.
Fear ripples through my chest as I feel the bone in my arm splinter. My body breaks out into sweat.
A sudden bright blast sears through the beast on top of me, and its jaw loosens as it dies in a smoking instant. I see Tony swoop by and I nod at him, thanking him for saving me.
While I was on the ground, a circle of growling creatures have surrounded me. I jump to my feet, quickly thinking over my next moves. I spin slowly to buy some time, and I cringe as I hear my arm bone snap back into place as my wounds heal themselves. I may not be as good of a fighter as the other Avengers, but I bounce back quickly.
And I'm crafty.
I reach into my pack and toss a handful of bullets into the air, then I jump up and throw my arms out, sending the heavy metal balls spraying out in every direction. They all hit their targets, and at least a dozen of the alien animals collapse. I rip out two guns from my belt and pull the triggers, spinning around to gun down even more beasts.
I look to my right and see Spiderman, who must have just arrived, and Thor blasting their way through a battalion towards Thanos, but they are beaten back by a giant horde of beasts freshly unleased from the spaceship. To my horror, I watch as five gigantic versions of these hairless wolf creatures emerge, and they must be thirty feet tall. The ground rumbles as they charge towards us.
I look over at Thanos in the distance. His body is obscured by the forces frantically running all around him, but I see his face peeking up over the chaos. He's smirking at the vicious scene in front of him, safe behind his own army on his golden throne.
Red hot hatred courses through me. My cheeks flush as I charge forwards, sweat clinging to my forehead. I run with ten metal spears I summon from the training grounds floating through the air alongside me, all slicing through mutts as we go. Any beast that dares come to close to me gets a metal rod through the skull.
When I approach the first gigantic wolf charging at me, I fuse all of the metal poles together and send the large spear flying at it. The metal sticks into the thing's eye and it stumbles, yelping in pain.
To my horror, it stands back up and snarls at me with teeth the size of my leg. I walk backwards, jaw on the floor in fear, hands outstretched to summon any metal I can get my hands on. A pistol flies into my hand from somewhere else on the battle field.
That will do me little good now. The giant beast lunges at me with a jaw the size of a car, but it's pulled off course by a green blur floating through the sky. My vision focuses and I realize the Hulk jumped up and grabbed onto the beast's jaw, pulling it to the ground. Hulk puts the giant thing into a chokehold, squeezing the life out of it with his impossible strength.
I nearly smile. Why don't we use the Hulk every time?
He stomps back down after killing the wolf, looking around for the next giant to kill.
"Hulk." He says, pointing to himself.
"I'm Cassidy. Thank you for saving me, Hulk." I reply.
He nods, grunting.
Then he flies off again, pushing off of the ground in search of the next victim to face his wrath. I look around and see Clint perched on top of a tall wooden electrical pole. He takes out beasts left and right with his explosive arrows, monitoring for any Avengers that might need saving.
Falcon and War Machine do the same thing, flying through the air and blasting the creatures to help those of us stuck on the ground.
I fly up towards Clint to get a better view of everyone, mostly because I need to take a head count. I need to know if we're all okay.
Vision and Wanda are far off to the right, teaming up to take down two of the giant wolf creatures. Hulk and Thor handle the other two that remain alive.
Loki, Natasha, and Steve are on the ground back to back, fighting the things in close combat. They look swarmed and overwhelmed. All of us do.
Doctor Strange and his men do their best to fight the beasts on the ground, using Spiderman to portal from spot to spot and kick beasts down as he flies through the air.
Tony stands alone off to the right, blasting everything that comes near him with explosives. I realize why he won't move positions immediately. He's stopping the beasts from moving towards the compound housing the infinity stones.
"Clint, how many are there?" I scream over the chaos.
He doesn't look up, locked in laser focus.
"Too many." He replies, "Thousands." After a beat he adds, "Shit. And I'm out of arrows."
I look to the battlefield and search my senses for signs of Clint's arrows. He makes them with a special alloy of different metals, one that is luckily very easy to distinguish. I summon the metal to me, and dozens of his arrows come flying at us.
He ducks in fear, but I stop them a few inches in front of us, gathering them and then offering the large bundle to him.
"Thanks." He says with a smirk at his own fearful reaction.
"Watch Tony's back. Cut down any strays." I tell him and he nods.
"Don't worry, I have everyone's back from up here." He says.
I fly back down and pull metal off of the battlefield. Little scraps come flying at me, and I form them into long and rough blades as I run.
I hold the long knives in both hands and charge at the aliens, cutting them down left and right. I feel a nasty claw dig into the side of my face, and the hearing in my left ear stops. My heart skips a beat in fear at the damage the claws did, and I turn with a force so strong that my metal slices straight through the attacking creature, slicing it cleanly in half. Their blood is a sickly purple color, and I'm certainly covered in it by now.
The black fabric of my suit is sticky to the touch.
My hearing slowly returns as I run and my ear reforms itself into shape.
Fifty yards ahead of me I see Nat, Cap, and Loki still circled up and fighting off beasts. They all look exhausted. I begin moving towards them to help out, though I feel the familiar sting of fatigue setting in all over me.
Cap takes on about five creatures at a time, trying to stop them from biting him with his shield. I can already see gashes along his arms from here. Even Loki, the picture of grace and agility, looks frantic and disheveled.
He meets my eyes and pauses to look at me for a moment too long, because suddenly a flying electric disk rams into his side, its metal spikes sticking into his abdomen as it electrocutes him.
I jump back, shocked, and fly up into the air to race over to him. My entire body goes cold with dread as I see him fall to the ground, twitching.
I scan the horizon for his attacker and see four figures dressed in black cloaks now moving through the crowd with the beasts. One of them sneers at Loki with an odd gun still raised. It must have shot him with the vicious electrocuting disk.
I use my powers to rip the gun from the person's hand. It snaps its ugly head up to look at me and I see it resembles a human and a fish at the same time, with slimy looking dull green skin. I shudder at the sight of the thing.
I use my powers to rip apart the gun. The cloaked man visibly snarls in anger and then looks towards Loki on the ground. He rips a knife from his cloak and begins charging towards Loki, gliding gracefully through the swarm of wolf beasts as though he's going through them.
I race over, trying to beat him there with everything I have. I push harder and harder off of the ground with my powers, springing my steps forwards until I'm practically leaping into the air with every step. My lungs burn with the effort as I also muscle away wolves lunging at me with my hands, blasting them off of me viciously with the iron in their blood.
As if in slow motion, the cloaked man reaches Loki and brings his knife down. Cap comes out of nowhere and stops the blow with his shield, but the man sends Cap flying back with the wave of his hand. Wolf creatures circle us, hundreds of them. I'm still a few feet too far to reach Loki.
The cloaked man goes for the kill again.
Not today. Not while I'm still breathing.
With a great roar that even scares myself, I bring my fists slamming down onto the grass, sending every ounce of energy I can muster spraying in all directions, careful to reach for Nat, Loki, and Cap and shield them from the blast. I feel the iron-heavy purple blood of each and every beast surrounding us, and I mercilessly rip it from their bodies.
A great wave of red dust flies out around us as hundreds of creatures, including the wretched fish-man, fall to the ground dead. I obliterated anything within a twenty-yard radius of us. Red dust settles in a ring around the massacre.
The battle nearly pauses for a moment as every creature and person in the area pauses to look at us. Cap and Nat say nothing, eyes wide. I stand up, chest high.
These beasts should fear me. For a moment, despite all this death, I feel proud. I feel powerful.
The thought is shaken by the image of Loki still on the ground. I rush over to his side and kneel. He looks pale as a ghost as he still twitches, muscles paralyzed in a spasm from the shock device.
I use my powers to carefully pull the metal disk from his stomach. His body relaxes, his arms drooping to his side. I do my best to prevent bleeding by clotting the blood near his small wound.
I run my hands through his hair, slick at the edges with sweat. He sits up shakily, but regaining strength quickly. He looks around at the dead creatures.
"Show off." He says and I smile. I bring his lips to mine for a brief moment as relief fills me to the brim with warmth.
"Guys. Maybe not the time." Cap says, though in a fearful tone, not an angry one.
I look up and see that four giant battalions of battle-formed wolves are marching towards us over the bodies of their fallen members.
"Shit." I curse under my breath. I don't have another blast like that in me right now.
Any advantage and pride I felt a moment ago disappears as I look out at the scene around me. As far as I can see are aliens. They cover every inch of ground. If they haven't killed any of us yet they will soon.
We can't hold off thousands of creatures forever. There's barely twenty-five of us with Doctor Strange's sorcerers. We are strong, but we aren't invincible.
I just wasted nearly all of the power I have saving Loki, one man among thousands of beasts. We're never going to win if all of our energy is spent saving one another, and simply trying not to die. We haven't even gained an inch of ground towards Thanos.
We have no real plan or battle strategy. We have no chance.
This fight is vicious. It's overwhelming.
"We're going to lose." I say in a low voice to nobody but myself.
"Then we'll do that together too." Loki says to me, though I didn't think he could hear me. I look over at him and a pang goes off somewhere deep inside of me, in the parts of my heart I have only every offered and showed to Loki.
I made the right choice loving him. He's so incredibly easy to love. Much harder to lose, though. So I don't plan on doing that today.
For however many agonizing minutes, Loki and I fight back to back. My arms and legs are littered with cuts and nicks from unforgiving fangs and claws.
I rip a dagger out of a wolf corpse and spin, cutting the jugulars of two beasts coming at Loki from the back. Blood splatters my face. I can taste the grit between my teeth. I shudder and spit at the ground.
My disgust throws me off guard and a wolf manages to pin me to the ground with its paws. I stab it in the shoulder, but it does little more than anger the hairless and bony beast. I see my own fear in the reflection of its blood red eyes.
Suddenly, an arrow splits the thing's skull, and it falls flat on top of me. I look up to Clint on his high perch, but his attention is elsewhere. It wasn't him. I see the arrow is made of wood and crudely shaped metal and stone.
My questions are all answered when I hear the rumble of footsteps. Hundreds of them.
I spring to my feet and fly into the air, and coming up from the hill I see salvation. The Asgardians, in all their battle glory, come racing towards the compound from their camp.
"Yes!" I scream, shoving a fist into the air to greet them in triumph. I must have screamed this into the headsets, because everyone else collectively turns towards my gaze.
"Oh, thank God." Cap breathes into the mic, breathless.
Asgardians flood the battle field, helping cut down the merciless creatures left and right. Before I know it, the fight becomes even. We're still outnumbered at least ten to one, but we're not losing anymore.
We may even be winning. Battle lines are formed and we begin slowly pushing the beasts back towards their craft. Towards Thanos.
Another painful time of pure ruthless fighting goes by. I fly above the fight to get a better vantage point. We still have our plan in place. We still need to get to Thanos and somehow get that gauntlet.
I look around to see who needs my help the most, and my heart nearly stops beating in my chest when I see a familiar figure emerge from the compound, machine gun in hand. It's the second time I've seen him with a gun now. I hate the sight.
I speed over to Dylan, who stands on the back porch looking out at the raging battle with fear. An explosion goes off in the distance. He flinches.
I stumble on the ground as I land, running over to him.
"What the hell are you doing out here? Are you insane?" I scream over the roar of the fight.
His expression turns to horror when he looks at me.
"Cassidy, you're covered in blood." He gapes.
"Not mine." I snap back, annoyed I have to take time out of the fight to come babysit him.
Then everything I did when I wasn't myself hits me like a brick. I drove a knife through his stomach only a few short days ago. I suddenly feel an overwhelming sense of shame that I haven't personally checked up on him in that time. I couldn't face him. I just couldn't. I hardly can now.
"It's not mine, Dyl." I add in a softer tone to ease his worry. My eyes flash to his abdomen where I hurt him. He senses my gaze.
"I'm fine, Cas. Mr. Stark is a miracle worker, whatever he did healed me in a matter of days. I'm good." He says and a bubble of relief blossoms in my heart.
"I'm so endlessly sorry. I don't deserve forgiveness so I won't ask for it, but-" I begin the apology I need to say but he cuts me off.
"It wasn't you. Mr. Stark filled me in on what's been going on with you since you...well, since you died. I don't blame you, Cas. And I know these alien assholes are here to end us all. Let me fight beside you. Like old times." He says, cracking a grin.
"I have a feeling I have little say on this." I reply.
At that, he laughs.
"None." He grins and I smile as well. My smile falters and I look at him seriously for a moment. He does the same.
This is the man I love with all my heart. This is my best friend.
I leap at him and pull him in for a back breaking hug. He returns the favor and I bury my head in his chest. I pull away from him and grab his face in my hands.
"Don't die." I tell him seriously. Then I glance down at his flannel shirt and sigh. "And put this on." I command, summoning a bulletproof vest from the other side of the patio with my powers.
"I'll be fine." He assures me, slipping it on.
I nod and begin to back up to return to battle.
"Oh, and Cas?" He yells above the noise. I raise my eyebrow in response. "Duck."
I crouch down as a hail of bullets fire above me from Dylan. I turn and see a few stray wolf creature's dead on the ground ten feet behind me.
"Is that all you've got?" I tease him and then I add, "Stay back here on the outskirts and light up any stray bastards that make it past us. Don't let any of them near that compound." I point to the facility that houses the other Infinity stones.
He nods, jogging off in that direction to guard the compound. I'm glad he'll be far away from the majority of the fight.
I return my attention to the fight, feeling a surge of confidence after rediscovering my best friend. That felt like healing.
I run back to the edge of the battle, working my way in to find someone to help out. I look to my right and see Spiderman, also known as the adorable Peter Parker, and Tony facing an entire squadron of beasts alone. They're protecting the compound, and now Dylan too.
My blood cools in fear when I see another one of those cloaked figures, this one a tall lilac alien girl, jump towards them to spar. She carries an insane three pronged and deadly looking spear.
As if in slow motion, Peter finds himself exposed after being knocked out of the air by a wolf. I watch in horror as the cloaked woman winds up and hurls the spear at Peter with frightening force. It moves like a bullet. Even my powers are too slow to stop it as I hopelessly run towards them.
My world spins.
A blur of red moves in front of Peter.
A loud screech.
Metal tears straight through metal. I feel it in my bones, with my ability reaching out to sense everything around me.
The fog of my mind clears.
Tony stands in front of Peter, shielding the boy. A spear sticks out of his chest. It cut straight through him, suit and all.
Red blurs the edges of my vision, my powers flare up around me, shooting out in random waves. My lips form the word 'No' just as Tony slumps forwards and lands on the ground with a deafening thud.
Dead.