Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Marvel, or am I the author of Dreaming of Sunshine. I am but a simple fanfiction author that builds off of other people ideas because I find it interesting.
Allowing the Time Stone to snap into place, Thanos feels the rush of energy flood through the Infinity Gauntlet's mental feedback system, and smiles.
"One to go."
One more until his crusade was complete, until he could restore Balance to the cosmos. The last Infinity Stone, the Mind Stone, the one he had carried ever since the devastation of Titan, that he lost to the Trickster, Loki, was the final piece to allow him to save the universe, to slice this universe's population in half. He was not far from his goal.
A blaster shot hits the Gauntlet, but it's useless. The Infinity Gauntlet was forged in the fires of Nidavellir, by the Dwarf King, Eitri and his kinsman, their greatest and final achievement, a weapon able to harness the powers of Creation. It would not be damaged by a mere blaster bolt. His daughter's lover flies toward him, firing at him with the fury of grief, and Thanos clenches his fist, activating the aspect of Space. He will leave them, these 'Guardians', for his fallen daughter had cared for them. However, the Balance will decide their fate. So he will leave Stark and the former guardian of the Time Stone, there was nothing they could do to stop him. The portal opened around him, and Thanos willed it to take him to Terra, to the Mind Stone.
The portal opens, and he steps out upon a wide, open battlefield. He smells the blood, the fire, the disturbance upon the once peaceful land and walks forward. He hears the Terrans, panicking upon his appearance, at the sight of the Gauntlet upon his hand. But most importantly, he can feel the rising power, the resonation of the six Infinity Stones gathered in one place, their pull. He looks forward, towards where the Mind Stone lays, and feels only grim satisfaction. They have handed him the Mind Stone on a silver platter. For standing in front of him, there stands a child, a Terran, and she is burning. Another poor soul who has succumbed to the power of the Infinity Stones, to the Mind Stone sitting upon her palm.
She stands confident and powerful, golden light surrounding her in a testament to the Mind Stone's power, her eyes blazing bright yellow. He even recognizes the girl, she's one of Stark's little protégés, garbed in a suit befitting of her moniker, 'Arachna'. He remembers her dossier from his spies' reports of Terra. But it is too late for her, for the Mind Stone has already taken her as a conduit, it would not be long before she turns to ash. He watches, bored, as Maximoff, the one who derives her power from the Mind Stone, turns her powers upon the girl. Thanos walks forward, as others try in vain to stop him.
He feels the exact moment the board changes. The Mind Stone's power pulses, sending out a telekinetic wave that ripples across the battlefield. Every living being is sent flying back, away from the epicenter. He sees she flicks her hand and a golden barrier erects around the two of them, gleaming with the power she possesses. Now, there is only Thanos, and the girl. She, blazing, burning with the power she holds, a single Infinity held in her palm. And he, Thanos, the conqueror of worlds, with the power of five Infinity Stones harnessed by the Gauntlet upon his hand.
"Will you submit?"
The light around the girl who was once Piper Parker only intensifies, lashing and solidifying around her.
"I'll never surrender to you, Thanos of Titan."
She sends a large blast of concentrated energy towards him, and Thanos enters an impossible battle.
Thanos fights, and finds himself fighting for his life. He fights against an impossibility, against a girl who does not turn to ashes. Thanos had the Mind Stone in his possession for decades, he has studied it extensively. He knows its capabilities, its powers. He knows exactly how much of the Mind Stone's power it takes before a living being disintegrates. But this girl, this child, has not. He fights her, and finds his place in the world threatened by a child. She channels the Mind Stone, and is challenging him.
It should be impossible, he possesses five of the most powerful objects in the known world, yet he cannot overpower one mentally-disabled girl, one Infinity Stone. It enrages him. She fights like one of his own children, powerful, deadly, with no regret, no remorse. She breaks the realm of possibility with the ease of the High Sorcerers of Titan once had. She speaks, and secrets cross her tongue, lecturing him, taunting him. She screams and calls him murderer, false god. She whispers, and he feels the Infinity Stones respond to her will.
He closes his fist and calls upon Time, Space, Power, Reality, Soul. The Gauntlet has limits; he can only call upon one aspect at a time while it remains incomplete, without the Mind to direct the others, to link him fully to the Stones. But he can use the five aspects in whatever way he sees fit, to form isolated time loops, manipulate space to his advantage, imbue his self with power, change reality, call upon the souls that have fallen. But nothing works, she evades his strikes, collectivizes her consciousness, sneak attacks, predicts his movements, influences his realities, faces the fallen with nothing but a mournful howl of fury. He can't touch her, and she has him floundering.
She stops for but a moment, staving off a blast of power with a flicker of her fingers, spinning, redirecting the power around her and sending it flying back towards him. He clenches his fist, activating Reality, the beam converts into simple light. She floats in place, her eyes flare brighter as she screams at him in righteous judgment.
"Blood seeps into every step you make, you may possess the stars, but you will never touch them. They reject your presence, the universe screams of your cruelty. You'll never find a place, Thanos of Titan. You bring death to all you touch. Just as you watched your people tear themselves apart. You are the reason Titan died, usurper, herald of death. You did not find a better way, they asked for your aid, but you spoke to them only of death. Too caught up in your people's traditions to look elsewhere.
"You may not have pulled the trigger, Thanos, but you never considered a better way. You were complicit, how long did you mourn before looting their homes? You bathe yourself in pain, garbed with the suffering of those beneath you. You claim to love, yet destroy the things care about. Tell me, destroyer, what does that make you."
He froze for but a moment, but it was quickly overcome with rage. For HOW DARE SHE. How dare she speak of things of which she knows nothing! How dare she judge him. She knows nothing, is nothing. The universe is a disastrous, imbalanced place, he makes it better. For the sake of the whole, many must die. He lives with the aching hole in his heart of his lost people. The knowledge that if only they had listened to him, perhaps Titan would still stand strong. He brings peace to the worlds he balances, once they submit to his rule they become paradises, never to fall to Titan's fate. So he will do for this world. The girl is a child, unknowing, ignorant to the ways of the universe. But he will not stand for it.
Thanos looks away for only a split-second, and he sees the boy. The enhanced, Terran boy is fighting his Outriders outside the barrier, garbed similarly to his twin sister. Thanos raises his right hand, closing the Gauntlet in his left, and calls upon Space. He curls his fingers around the boy's fragile throat. It would be so simple to crush him as he did the Jotunn pretender, but he shall give her one last chance.
"Child. Give me the stone."
The buzz of the Infinity Stones through the Gauntlet's mental feedback turns into a scream. She snarls, like a wild animal, the light around her flickers. Her eyes go white, shattering into the colors of the rainbow.
"No"
The scream in his mind roars into a sonic boom, the stones breaking away from the Gauntlet. He looks into her eyes, frozen as the world explodes into white, strangling his scream as his hand erupts in agony, crushed. The weight in his right hand disappears. He closes his eyes, to block it out. But he is bombarded, with anger, rage, grief, sorrow, pain beyond his greatest imagings, and he is frozen. He feels the creepers of fear slip into his mind.
The light subsides, and she demands his attention.
"You dare threaten what is ours, Thanos of Titan."
She stands amidst a storm of power, raging light, whipping around her, all six of the Infinity Stones dancing around her with feckless, wild abandon. She speaks with the layered tones of the enthralled. The all speak through her now, her power limitless, infinite. Thanos feels the seed of fear grow. The impossibility walks forward.
"You, destroyer, conqueror. You who call for the death of worlds, who warps and destroys all you set your eyes upon. You who dare use our power, come to our world, threaten our people. You dare give us demands, and assume we shall submit!"
He is afraid, he steps back and a question slips out.
"What are you."
She flares ever brighter, not missing a step. Her disgust, her anger grows, blazes to the forefront of his mind.
"We are our self. We are Shikako, we are Renee, we are Tabitha, Nukka, Marguerite, Sarah, Umbra, Suiko, Madeline. We are she and so much more. We are the soul that never rests. We are she who fought a god and won his power. We are human. We are the goddess who gave up godhood to return to humanity. We are Time, Space, Reality, Power, Mind, Soul. We are Piper, twinsisterpartnerbestfriend. We are all of these and you have made us whole.
"We do not thank you for it. Now tell us Thanos. Why should we grant you mercy, you who grants mercy to none."
His memories bombard him, of every death, every execution, every life he has seen taken. Of the balances he has taken, the prices, the sacrifices, the choices he has made. Choices he does not regret, cannot regret lest they all be for nothing. He feels her rage. He feels her power, hears her words and the final piece clicks. He feels anger of Life, and he retreats further, his voice weak even to his own ears.
"I wished only to restore the Balance."
He feels her disgust, her distain.
"Balance. Yes, we know of you, balancer. A false god lusting for powers you don't understand. You who weigh your balance with the weight of the dead, who grease the cogs of your conquest with the blood of innocents, you who despise life, yet claims to wish to restore it. You who sow death and destruction, sorrow and despair everywhere you lay your eyes. You who break the life of children. Who create life, yet stifle it, brutalize it, give them no life at all, only pain, death, violence and war. You who so easily believe that death is the key. You who extorted the power to hold us with the blood of Nidavellir. You who sacrificed that you held dearest at the behest of a bitter shade. We know what you've done. We see and that angers us."
He feels the loss, the lights extinguished; his mind is filled with the images of suffering. She confronts him with it, the blood he has shed, the wars he has waged, the lives he has ended. All in the name of his conquest, all to save the world. She sees them and stops. Life stops, and waves her hand. The Infinity Stones pulse at her behest. Gamorra appears upon the ground between them. His favorite child, broken and frozen upon the grass between them. Just as he left her in the mountains of Vormir, a sacrifice to possess the Soul Stone. A fair bargain.
"You who take children from their homes, from families you've murdered, and make them your own. Make them your weapons. I've known men like you, Thanos. Do you see her, Thanos. Gamorra of Zen-Whoberi, the child who escaped you, who you loved as one of own. Who found Soul, then fled from you, finding the family you never gave her. The family you stole her from, who stood against you. Do you see them?"
Her eyes flash in tandem with the Infinity Stones and he does. The fools whom he had left upon the surface of Titan appear outside of the barrier she has created. He sees them, the ones Gamorra calls 'family'; his daughter, Nebula; the Terran cursed with knowledge; and the Terran sorcerer who had given him the Time Stone. The sorcerer looks at him with triumph in his eyes before looking back at Life.
"They who carried our Power, united and as one, yet did not die. The magician who bargained with a primordial yet came out the better, holding our Time? They who stood against you when you set your eyes upon Space, taking our Mind. Do you see he who cared for she who held Reality, he of a lost Kingdom, King of those you massacred to acquire Space? Do you see them Thanos. The champions of this world, the heroes of their own stories. Those who stand against you? Those you would crush to retake Mind? Do you remember Xandar, the screams that echoed across the cosmos as you destroyed those who protected Power? Do you see them? They who protect my Life. Look at them Thanos, destroyer of Life. Do you see our champions? Now tell me, why should we grant mercy, usurper! Champion of the false Balance."
Images that are not his own flood his mind. He sees their actions, their achievements. He feels Life's love, her gratitude towards those who protected her power, her world. Thanos falls to his knees, his mind seeming to overflow from the knowledge that fills him. But her feels her ire towards him rise. Her energies burst even further as she raises her hand. Dread weighs down in his stomach. Her decision has been made.
"For let us tell you, Thanos. There is no Balance. There is life, there is death, and there is all the bits between. You fight for an ideal, apathetic to the suffering you cause, irreverent to the futures you destroy. For that you shall see them. That is your fate, you shall see them. You will stretch across the universe. A lonely god, you who would abandon your humanity, you shall see them all, but you may never touch them. You shall see all that is, all that was, all that ever will ever be. Your armies will be sent away, minds restored, to a planet of their own, to create themselves anew. Xandar shall be restored, the lost children of Asgard brought back to life, Gamorra alive, all who died this day to keep you from us will be brought back, and you will see the fruits of your labors undone. So mote it be, be gone!"
He had but a moment to understand before she snapped her fingers in cosmic irony, eyes brilliant, cold and unforgiving. His last thoughts burnt into his mind.
'I don't regret it.'