A/N: Hey my dudes! Here's a chapter to resolve your boredom for about thirty minutes. Sorry about the long update, I went away for a bit and decided to write the second I came back. At least I'll have a ton of time now that quarantine is a thing. Hopefully, the next chapter will be out soon. Have fun reading!
- Harper E. Pierce
Within the twenty-three days after Thanos had used the stones, the Avengers had spent most of it counting how many they'd lost from Earth and who was lost. They had lost hope of ever finding Tony until someone looking for Fury had shown up in the area. Her name was Carol Danvers, another alien, but she looked much like she was from Earth. She was extremely powerful, probably the most powerful Avenger that they knew of. They could only tell her that Fury had died in the snap, but they also enlisted her help in finding Tony, as she was the only one of them that could go into space. She'd gone looking, but it had been days.
Lorelei spent most of those days cooped up in her room, refusing to be seen by anyone. She felt responsible for the death of her friends, and the loss of billions of people across the world. She failed. She hated feeling like a failure. She'd hit her lowest point in life. But she wondered why she was the one that survived. She was the weakest of her friends, from what she knew, she was stuck as the one who's eyes wouldn't change colour, she was the one whose powers would stay the same for the rest of her life. She wouldn't stand a chance at defeating Thanos, he'd kill her in an instant. But that didn't matter now. He was gone, nowhere to be found. There was no way they'd get him now. They lost. It didn't matter now. But suddenly, Steve barged into the room.
"The building is shaking. It's coming from outside, c'mon," he said. She followed him outside to see what looked like a spaceship landing. Carol was holding it from the bottom, landing it on the ground. Hope struck Lorelei's heart that Tori was alive. They opened the hatch on the door and let it down. A skinny, malnourished looking Tony was helped out of the ship, and another alien-looking woman named Nebula followed. Steve grabbed ahold of Tony to help him out. For the first time since their feud, they saw each other.
"Couldn't stop him," Tony sighed.
"Neither could I," Steve replied grimly. Lorelei ran over to them.
"Where are the others? Tori? Peter?" She asked hopefully. Tony's face appeared grim.
"I lost the kids," he replied to both of them, "I'm sorry,"
"Tony, we lost," Steve corrected him.
"Oh, my God!" Pepper ran over and hugged him tightly.
"It's okay," Tony hugged her back, relieved to see that at least she was still alive. The group went back into the compound and to explain to Tony and Nebula their numbers. First, they stabilized the sickly Tony, then they regrouped. Pictures of the Avengers they had lost in the battle flashed across the holographic screens in the area.
"It's been twenty-three days since Thanos came to Earth. World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census, And it looks like he did... he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out... fifty percent of all living creatures,"
"Where is he now? Where?" Tony jumped at the opportunity.
"We don't know. He just opened a portal and walked through," Tony explained.
"What's wrong with him?" Tony asked, talking about Thor who sat in the back of the room looking angry and hurt.
"He's pissed. He lost everyone in this war. His brother, his friend, his girlfriend, everyone. He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but there's a lot of that goin' around, ain't there?" Rocket explained.
"Honestly, at this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear," Tony shot back sarcastically.
"Maybe I am," Rocket replied.
"We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now. Deep space scans, and satellites, and we got nothing. Tony, you fought him," Steve pointed out.
"Who told you that? I didn't fight him. No. He wiped my face with a planet while a Bleecker Street magician gave away the stone. That's what happened. There was no fight," Tony spat.
"Okay. Did he give you any clues? Any coordinates, anything?" Steve asked genuinely. Clearly, Tony wasn't in the right state of mind to be giving answers.
"Pfft! I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming," the sarcasm was dripping from his lips. Lorelei had enough of this.
"Cut the bullshit, Stark and help us find Thanos so we can try to save the universe instead of being such a goddamn useless prick!" She yelled at him as she slammed her hands down on the chair he sat in.
"Nat, get her out of here, she's in no mindset to be here right now," Rhodes said. Nat put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off and stormed out of the room.
"What's with her?" Tony asked.
"She's the only one of the seven of them left. The rest all died with the snap. She's angry. She didn't mean what she said," Steve explained, "although, Tony I'm gonna need you to focus,"
"And I needed you. As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late, buddy. Sorry. You know what I need? I need to shave. And I believe I remember telling all of you alive that otherwise, that what we needed was a suit of armour around the world. Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms, or not. That's what we needed!" Tony suddenly stood up and ripped the IV out of his arm. Rhodes tried to help him sit back down, as he was too weak to be doing this. Steve remained gentle.
"Well that didn't work out, did it?"
"I said we'd lose. You said, "We'll do that together, too." Well, guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren't there. But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers? We're the Avengers? Not the Prevengers?
"Okay. You made your point. Just sit down, okay?" Rhodes tried to calm him down.
"No, no. Here's my... She's great, by the way," he shifted his focus to Carol.
"Tony, sit, sit down!" Rhodes snapped, but it went ignored.
"We need you. You're new blood. Bunch of tired old mills... I got nothing for you, Cap. I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options... Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust, you liar," he spat to Steve, who just had a guilty look on his face.
"Here, take this. You find him and you put that on. You hide," when he finished his spiel, he dropped to his knees weakly. Bruce helped him and carried him to a room where he could be monitored. The Avengers decided to carry on later. Rhodey came out of the room to where the Avengers watched him sadly. Lorelei entered the room again, much more calm than before.
"Are you okay?" Steve asked.
"I guess," she sighed.
"Bruce gave him a sedative. He's gonna probably be out for the rest of the day.
"You guys take care of him. And I'll bring him a Xorrian elixir when I come back," Carol told them, walking away from them like she was on a mission.
"Where are you going?" Nat asked.
"To kill Thanos. Lorelei should come with me," she added, pulling the girl with her.
"Hey, slow down. Why am I going with you?" The dark-haired woman asked.
"Well, you're the most powerful of all of us, you'll probably do the most damage to him," she replied like it was obvious.
"What? No!" She looked in disgust. Even the other Avengers cocked a brow, "you've got that way off. I'm probably one of the weakest people here," she replied.
"You're Lorelei Adams right?" She asked.
"Yes, why?"
"Then I'm pretty sure I have it right," she said, pulling her with her.
"Have what right?" Lorelei ripped her arm away from the other woman.
"The legend," she replied. Lorelei looked confused, "and, you have no idea what I'm talking about. Okay, so basically, a long time ago the stones were used in a similar context to what Thanos used them for. The person wanted to create a new universe with the stones so that he could control it. Well, the stones were created by cosmic entities that never wanted an imbalance of power in the universe, so it created guardians for each stone. One for space, one for power, one for reality, one for soul, one for mind, and one for time. But there was a seventh guardian added with a bit of a difference from the others. In the other six guardians, each one would grow old and die like any species, and the power would be passed on to the next generation, or to a new person if there was no next generation. But the seventh was one that would live forever in the Soul realm. When this guardian would be needed soon, the guardian would "begin a new life" wherever he or she would be needed on whichever planet. They would appear on the planet they were to live on for their lifespan, live their life and save the universe, and when they were done they would continue to live their life and then "die". AKA, they would go back to the Soul Realm until they were needed once more. Lorelei, you're it this time around. You're the guardian,"
"That's not possible," she said, "also why would this guardian go up to the Soul Realm after? Why wouldn't they just reincarnate?"
"The guardian is too powerful to live a life where they don't have a purpose,"
"And the guardian could be any gender?"
"The gender of the guardian can change every time they come back to life. This time, you're female, but in the past, you could've been any gender. The guardian has no true physical being, the guardian is only a soul with immense power. How you look right now is not your true form, but it is your form for the lifespan you have as a human,"
"Okay, how are you supposed to know who the guardian is?"
"The eyes of the guardian change colour,"
"Hm, see that's just the thing right there. MY EYES DON'T FRICKIN' CHANGE! It can't be me," Lorelei yelled. Nat and Steve followed the girls, cutting off their conversation.
"It has to be you," Captain Marvel went on, "you're the only one of the guardians that survived. Use of the stones doesn't affect you," Nat finally ended what seemed to be their meaningless argument.
"You know we usually work as a team here, and between you and I, morale's a little fragile,"
"We realize up there is more your territory but this is our fight, too," Steve added.
"You even know where he is?" Rhodes pressed.
"I know people who might," she argued.
"Don't bother," Nebula finally stepped into the conversation, "I can tell you where Thanos is. Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me. Then when he worked, he talked about his great plan. Even disassembled, I wanted to please him. I'd ask, where would we go once his plan was complete? His answer was always the same. To The Garden," she explained grimly.
"That's cute. Thanos has a retirement plan," Rhodes snarked.
"So where is he, then?" Steve asked. Rocket pulled up a holographic of Earth as he began to explain.
"When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions. No one's ever seen anything like it... until two days ago," he flipped the hologram to another, brighter-looking planet, "On this planet,"
"Thanos is there," Nebula said.
"He used the stones again," Natasha sucked in a breath.
"Hey, hey, hey... we'd be going in short-handed, you know?" Bruce stated.
"Look, he still got the stones, so-"
"So let's get him. We use them to bring everyone back," Carol cut Rhodey off.
"Just like that?" Rhodey exclaimed.
"Yeah. Just like that," Steve agreed with her.
"Even if there's a small chance that we can undo this... I mean, we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try," Natasha insisted.
"If we do this, how do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?" Bruce doubted the idea.
"Because before, you didn't have me, and you didn't have Lorelei's knowledge about who she is. She's a powerful asset to the team, more so than I am," Carol's narcissism and her confidence in Lorelei shone.
"Okay, I don't know who you think I am but I am not this "guardian" you're talking about!" Lorelei snapped.
"Hey, new girl, everybody in this room is about that superhero life. And if you don't mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?" Rhodey snapped.
"There are a lot of other planets in the universe. And unfortunately, they didn't have you guys," Thor finally stood up from the back and walked up to Captain Marvel threateningly. The blonde woman stood her ground. Once he was only half a foot from her, he summoned his axe, and she didn't flinch at the sudden movement. She only raised a challenging brow.
"I like this one," he said to his friends. Steve looked at the holograph of the planet that Thanos was on.
"Let's go get this son of a bitch," he preached as the team ran to suit up and get on Rocket's ship. After about thirty minutes, everyone was on the ship. Rocket and Nebula sat in the cockpit, while the others all sat behind them. Nebula and Rocket knew their way around space more than anyone else on that ship. Just as they took off and were exiting the Earth's atmosphere, Rocket turned around to his comrades.
"Okay, who hasn't been to space?" Rocket asked. Lorelei, Steve, Nat and Rhodey raised their hands hesitantly, "you better not throw up on my ship," he turned back to continue driving. He and Nebula prepared them for the jump to lightspeed.
"Approaching jump in three...two...one!" She pushed the lever forward and the ship started moving faster than anyone from Earth had ever been. As they pushed through the wormhole, Steve's eyes widened as he clutched his seat for dear life. Lorelei squeezed her eyes shut as they went through at the feeling. After a few minutes, the ship slowed down and hovered over the real planet that Rocket had shown through the holograph back at the compound. Carol prepared to leave the ship called the Benetar.
"I'll go down for recon," she nodded at the Avengers. As Carol scoped out the place, the Avengers in ship waited nervously, knowing this could end very poorly.
"This is gonna work, Steve," Natasha's optimism caused him to look up.
"I know it will," he replied with a grim smile, which faded quickly, "cause I don't know what I'm gonna do if it doesn't," Carol returned to the ship.
"No satellites, no ships, no armies, no ground defences of any kind. It's just him," she told them suspiciously.
"Nothing?" Lorelei exclaimed.
"Nope," she replied.
"And that's enough," Nebula muttered grimly. The Avengers travelled down to the planet on the ship, while Carol got there herself. The Avengers landed the ship, while she went and prepared her attack.
Thanos walked about the farm surrounding his shack, picking the fruit he was growing in the field. The alien's entire left side was severely burnt up, small and weak. The use of the stones had shown that he was weaker than the cosmic energy those stones had exhibited. He made his way back to his shack, where he was to prepare his meal in his peaceful solitude. For the last twenty-two days, the alien had made a peaceful and solitary life here, wanting no trouble from anyone, and giving no trouble to anyone. He silently cooked his meal over a fire in his shack but looked up at the sound of movement from outside. Suddenly, Captain Marvel blasted at him through the shack, which he took the hit by blocking his face. She lunged at him through the roof and knocked him down. She wrapped herself and his neck and held him there. Suddenly, Bruce burst in through the floor, grabbing the arm where the infinity gauntlet remained. Not far behind him was Thor, who quickly sliced off the arm using his axe. Thanos let out a painful scream. Rhodey and Rocket flew down and pointed guns at him. Nat, Steve and Lorelei walked through the door with angry looks.
Rocket quickly kicked over the limb that Thor had just cut off, but the reaction to what he saw was less than pleasant. It wasn't what the raccoon found, but really what he didn't find; the stones.
"Oh no," Rocket breathed sharply. Steve, Lorelei and Nat took a look at the gauntlet and saw what Rocket was referring to. Steve's head shot up to Thanos, but Lorelei was faster in getting to him.
"Where are the stones?" Lorelei menacingly walked up to the alien, holding a dark look. "Answer me, you selfish prick," she spat as she grabbed him by the ear and began to twist it, causing more groans of pain, "or are you too much of a coward to do that?" She whispered closely into his ear. Nat placed a hand on her shoulder to get her to keep her emotions in check, and not to screw up the mission.
"Where are they?" Steve asked again.
"Answer the question!" Carol squeezed more on his neck.
"The universe required corrections. After that, the stones serve no purpose beyond temptation," Thanos spat back.
"You murdered trillions!" Bruce in the Hulkbuster shoved him hard to the ground with a shout.
"You should be grateful!" Thanos shot back. Bruce punched him in response.
"Where are the stones?" Nat asked him shakily, both with anger and fear.
"Gone. Reduced to atoms,"
"You used them two days ago!" Bruce seethed.
"You used those stones to murder the people I love no more than three weeks ago and now you're telling me that they're just gone?!" Lorelei raged.
"I used the stones to destroy the stones. It nearly killed me. But the work is done. It always will be," that sinister, sadistic smile appeared on his face, "I am... inevitable."
"We have to tear this place apart. H-h-he has to be lying!" Rhodey excused frantically, but Nebula's grim face believed every word he spoke.
"My father is many things. A liar is not one of them," she looked down to the floor in shame.
"Ah, thank you, daughter. Perhaps I treated you too harshly," his words were almost cut off as Thor swiftly swung his axe across his neck, killing him instantly by decapitation. Thor's face of anger, fear, shock and sadness showed as he looked over the decapitated body of his nemesis. Nebula wiped her father's blood off her face with some regret in her eyes. Lorelei looked over at Thor with eyes of shock as her mouth fell open.
"What... what did you do?" Rocket asked softly. Thor's grim response was only,
"I went for the head." The god said grievously and walked out of the shack, knowing that he had accomplished his mission, yet he still remained lost. Every Avenger in that room knew Thor's feelings at that moment. Loss. Loss of his brother, his best friend, and his girlfriend. As they all silently went back to the ship, they knew one thing for sure. Even though they had successfully killed their target, they had still failed. There was no bringing anyone back, the stones no longer existed, yet forgetting about them was never going to happen. This wasn't ever going to be forgotten, by anyone. For all the people that weren't there with the Avengers, they had failed them.
Five Years Later...
The only people still living in the compound at this point were Nat and Rhodey. Steve remained on call for anything Nat needed him for, as did Rocket, Carol, Okoye, Nebula. Bruce went off to continue researching his condition with the Hulk. Nobody knew where Clint was, and Rhodes reluctantly listened to Nat's requests about finding him. He had become a mass murderer in the last few years, getting rid of guys he deemed as "bad" in his own very demented methods. Tony and Pepper had left the Avengers after their wedding to start a family. Thor remained in god knows where, helping the refugee Asgardians rebuild their lives on Earth, and cut off contact with the Avengers.
Lorelei, now a thirty-four-year-old, had also decided to close the Avengers chapter of her life. Much like Thor and Tony, she'd completely cut off contact with the Avengers and lived her life away from them. It had been almost five years since she had seen any of them in person, mainly because the eerie silence of the compound caused a great deal of depression in her. There were no missions to go on, nothing to do except mope and train for nothing. So she left. But she wasn't going to drown her sorrows in a bottle of hard scotch, no, Lorelei wasn't like that. She used work to forget. She became an influential member of the United Nations, working as an ambassador of peacekeeping in the world. You'd think that snapping half the population away would end it, but not on earth. That's just the selfishness of humanity. She spoke out against violence and spoke on behalf of the many missionaries going overseas. She supplied countries in desperate situations with missionaries who could help them and get them out.
But she never did anything outside of work. She dreaded getting back to her apartment in New York City, with the only thing filling the silence was Prince, who was now a six-year-old full-grown Samoyed dog. She thought that Justine would want her to take care of him. Of course, she always wondered why the six most powerful women in the universe didn't survive the snap, but she and one of their dogs did. Thanos did say that the snap was random.
Lorelei walked into her apartment after yet another long but not boring day. She set her keys down on the post next to the door, her purse on the ground next to her shoes. She hung up her white coat in the closet. Prince squealed in excitement at her return and jumped on her leg to be pet.
"Hi Prince," she smiled at the dog as she pet his head. "You need food, don't you?" She walked over to the cupboard where she kept his food, and placed the kibble in his bowl, anagrammed with his name. Oh, Raven, splurging for your animals, she thought to herself as the dog began eating. She went over to the couch where she put on the tv to see her own face at the press conference from earlier that day. There was a news broadcast about the new launch of peacekeepers sent to Iraq that she had led and spoke about. She didn't care to hear what the press was saying, so she changed the channel. After mindlessly watching quite a few reruns of Friends, she checked the time to see that it was already eleven o'clock that night, and she knew she had a long day ahead of her tomorrow. She looked down to see Prince curled up asleep against her leg, so she decided not to move him to her bedroom and just keep the door open for when he woke up.
She got up and walked over to her bedroom, opening the dresser where she kept her neatly folded pyjamas. As she rifled through, she noticed the all-too quiet apartment. Prince was asleep, but she felt the presence of another in the room with her. She slowly and silently grabbed the gun hidden behind the dresser and continued to rifle through the dresser, listening closely for any movement. She suddenly felt the presence move closer to her, and swiftly turned around and pointed the gun at the head of the person standing behind her, a stone-cold look in her eyes.
"Jesus Christ," she sighed as the person she saw standing in front of her was Natasha Romanoff herself. She lowered the gun and put the safety back on.
"Clearly you still haven't forgotten your training," Nat observed.
"No, clearly not," she replied.
"It's been a while though," Nat pointed out almost begrudgingly as she took a seat on the chair near Lorelei's vanity.
"Four and a half years, am I right?" Lorelei put the gun back behind the dresser.
"In around," she replied, "woulda been nice to at least hear from you,"
"I told you, Nat, I put the Avengers behind me," the black-haired woman spat.
"We were your friends, Lorelei. The only family you had-"
"Well I guess not then," she spat again, "what are you doing here, anyway? I told you and Steve that I was done a long time ago,"
"I don't think you are yet,"
"Nat, no. I'm not going back,"
"You haven't even heard what I have to say yet-"
"And I don't need to. The answer is no,"
"Even if there was a shot to bring everyone back?" Nat proposed. Lorelei's blood ran cold for a moment. She froze. Every memory of every moment she ever had with her friends came back all in that one second.
"It's not possible. The stones are gone," Lorelei whispered grimly.
"We have a chance, a small chance nonetheless, but a chance, and you're not going to take it?"
"How do you even know we have a chance, huh?! Tell me!"
"Do you remember the guy on Steve's side for the Accords war? The one who shrunk and grew? His name is Scott Lang. Well, Scott got stuck in a place called the quantum realm when the snap happened and came out of it a few hours ago, thinking that it had only been five hours, not five years,"
"Time travel? Really? C'mon Nat, I thought you were smarter than that," Lorelei scoffed at the idea.
"Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy. But I get emails from a raccoon, so-"
"Even if this time travel idea was possible, how do we know that it won't just cause things to get worse? Nothing ever goes well when you mess with time, Nat. It tends to bite you in the ass,"
"What choice do we have?! We owe it to everyone we've lost! You're not even gonna try?!" Nat got angrier. "Don't you want to see your friends again?! Don't you wanna give Raven her dog back in perfectly healthy shape? Don't you wanna see Thor and Skylar get married and have kids one day that you'd be a godmother to? Don't you wanna-"
"Of course I do! Do you think I don't remember Bucky and Lexi fighting about the stupidest things? Or Tris and Skylar's lab work, messing around with Tony's shit? Or Tori, launching the vibranium line as the first western-hemisphere producer of vibranium clothing? Do you think I don't remember the one time Quinn baked us all weed brownies and didn't tell us they weren't normal brownies until after we ate them? I want those moments back," Lorelei stated, "okay, maybe not that last one, but you know what I mean. But it doesn't change the fact that they're gone,"
"They don't have to be gone forever, Lorelei. We might be able to get those moments back. You're just going to trust me. I know you don't want to do any more missions because it just makes you sad that you're not doing them with the people you love the most, but this is our last chance. It's one more shot at getting them back. Please, we need you Lorelei. Don't give up on them yet," Nat pleaded. Lorelei thought about her words. Although she did amazing things with the UN, she wasn't happy. Her friends were gone, all because she had failed. And she knew she would be stupid not to take a chance and get them back if she had even a small shot.
"I'll be at the compound tomorrow morning at nine AM,"