Hey guys, so here you go! You know the drill, so I'll see you later!
REVIEWS:
mfaerie32: Yep.
SirPikachu: Yes! That's what I was going for.
Broken Silhouettes: Thanks so much! I am having such a great time writing this, so I am overjoyed to hear that you are loving it so much!
Frost Deejn: Yes, pretty much everyone knows there inside of the stone, sorry if I did not make that clear.
Alright guys, one last thing before I go, I would like to ask of a favor. I can't really remember, I may have put this in the beginning of my story or I might not have, I'm not sure, but if you haven't noticed in my story, I don't swear. I really try not too, and I would totally appreciate it if in the reviews you guys could try not to swear as well. This is not because of a single person, but it has shown up a few times and I let it slide, but I would like to ask to try and do that for me. I love that you guys are comfortable with expressing yourself about my story in the reviews, and I truly love reading them, but I would like to ask that we try not to swear. I understand, every has the right to saw what they want to say, and the only reason I am saying this now is because I can't tell if I did it in the beginning. This won't come up again, but please, as a courtesy to me, please try not to swear.
Whew. Okay, anyway, with that out of the way, here's the next chapter of the story! I'll post the next one soon! Enjoy!
The mood had turned from a joyful win to downright depressing. The fleeting thought of actually getting a chance to win was gone, out of everyone's minds. Getting the soul stone was their last chance of escaping, and that disappeared with Thanos. So everyone turned to the next thing: cleaning up. The world was silent, except for the occasional rustle of wind blowing the sand, but everyone seemed to communicate without speaking of thinking. The process was natural, implemented in everyone's brains after years of fighting.
The first step was to check out one another. Sometimes in a large group, but this time the heroes broke off into small groups to make sure they were all right. Triage was applied, just like any battlefield or hospital, the most life-threatening injuries first. The Guardians were all huddled together, families stick together after all. Groot focused on his arms, wrapping more twigs around the area of his forearm to make it stronger, but he couldn't keep his mind of the one missing person.
"I am Groot," he whispered sadly, and instantly the rest of the Guardians turned to their youngest member and looked at him with the same sad faces.
"I know buddy, we miss Rocket too." Quill and the rest of the group tried to ignore the fact that Groot didn't use Rocket's name. Ever since the battle, they had heard Groot crying to Rocket but it broke their own heart's too much to say anything other than vague comforts.
"I am Groot, I am Groot…"
"Dad, dad…"
They fell back into silence, and Quill turned back to Gamora, where he was wiping a bit of blood away from her forearm with a ripped piece of cloth. She rested her head on his shoulder, hand entwined with his. Ever since they had found each other again, they haven't let go if they could help it.
Mantis was sitting on her knees, hands folded carefully in her lap. Her head hung low, trying to hide the tears that ran down her cheeks. Mantis was exhausted. Her powers took a real toll on her, and they were a blessing and a curse at the same time. Her empathy gave her the awesome ability to sense others feelings and helping encourage them to different ones. But the terrible side to it came in the same form. Whatever they were feeling, she felt it too, sometimes in double of what they were.
Mantis wanted nothing more than to hug Drax, to hold his hand, lean on his shoulder, any form of contact. But with the downcast look on everyone's faces, she knew if she even brushed his skin, or any of their skin for the matter, she would get hit by the same feeling. Mantis was already upset, she didn't need the other's emotions riding on her.
Drax could tell something was wrong by the way Mantis was avoiding everyone. When they had all sat down, he had tried to sit with her. But as soon as he was in reach of her, she flinched and backed away, sitting as far from all of them as possible. Drax wasn't great with emotions and feelings, that was her job. He definitely wasn't great with saying the right thing either, he knew that. But when the normally most happy person in the room was crying, he wanted to help.
There wasn't much he knew he could do, so he tried his best. Her power was empathy, so she felt what he felt. What if he thought something happy, could see too? So Drax shook his head, tried to push everything about the battle and what Thanos had done to the back of his head and bring up a happy memory. There wasn't much, his life was full of death and destruction. He had to go way back, back to before he was nicknamed "The Destroyer".
Drax tentatively went to tap Mantis' shoulder, but she saw it coming and flinched away, turning her face away.
"Mantis." She turned and looked into Drax's face, where he tried to give an easy smile. "Trust me."
She sniffed and nodded, and his hand was held out in front of her, where she grabbed it gently. She braced herself for the onslaught of sad memories, but she was genuinely surprised.
"Daddy, Daddy!" The little girl sprinted up to her dad, little pink dress flowing behind her. The purple grass was crushed underneath her little white shoes, and bright red hair was brought up into pigtails.
"Kamaria!" Drax shouted, picking up his little daughter and spinning her around in the air. She giggled and the laughter brought the biggest smile to Drax's face. When he finished spinning together they dropped down the grass next to Drax's wife, Hovat.
"You guys are too silly," Hovat laughed as Drax tickled Kamaria's little stomach.
"Stop it, tickle monster!" Kamaria shrieked in between laughs, trying to crawl away from her father's tickling hands.
"I'm not the tickle monster, I'm Drax!" Drax shouted, which made Kamaria only laugh harder. Hovat watched with a small smile while they played, the strikingly blue sun shining on them. Drax looked over to see his wife, and a wide grin spread across his face. Hovat saw the look and raised a threatening fighter at him.
"Drax, don't you dare."
"I dare!" Drax had turned his tickling from his daughter to his wife, who couldn't resist laughing out loud. Kamaria joined her father and everyone tickled each other, not a care in the world.
"Drax," Mantis said, tears in her eyes. But these tears weren't of sadness, they were happy tears. "That was beautiful."
Drax grunted, neither in thanks or apology, just accepted it. He focused on that new feeling long enough so Mantis could lean against Drax and close her eyes. She focused on the happy feeling too, spreading it out long enough for them to enjoy the feeling.
Suddenly, an idea popped into her head, and she gave a small smile. Taking a deep breath, she took the pure emotion from Drax's memory, the happiness, the joy, and spread her arms out wide. Yellow energy flew out from her fingertips and slowly touched the minds of all the heroes around her. Momentarily the happy feeling rested in their brains. By no means was it a cure or an immediate solution for the depressive state, but it lifted spirits just a bit, enough to make an impact.
Mantis finished with a watery smile on her face, mouthing 'thank you' to Drax. While she looked away, Drax would never admit it but he felt some of his own tears.
Bucky stayed close to Wanda, not straying very far from the emotional girl. Bucky had seen various forms of those same emotions the entire time she had been caring for Vision. Vision, well, he wasn't looking too good in Bucky's opinion. He was still grey and motionless, his forehead broken in slightly crushed. Wanda whispered to herself in Russian over and over again, trying various spells and tricks to bring him back. Bucky didn't want to say anything but his best bet was that Vision wasn't coming back, not at least without the mind stone. Which Thanos still had.
"Wanda," he said softly in Russian, snapping Wanda out of her trance above Vision to stare at him, her eyes slightly red. "Take a break. Come here."
"I can't take a break, I need to fix him, I need to bring him back…" She ranted, running out of breath and Bucky knew it was enough. He groaned and stood up, walking over to her and gently placing his arm over her shoulders, dragging her away from Vision. He sat her down a few feet away, making her look at him.
"He will be fine, just break a few minutes." Wanda keep looking over her shoulders, but she sighed and Bucky knew that he won one of the many battles yet to come. Gently, while he had her attention, he checked her out to make sure she wasn't critically injured.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
Wanda shook her head. "I don't think so. Not any more than before."
"How are your arms?"
"Fine." Wanda was lying big time, and Bucky was skeptical of it. Ever since she had started to try and heal Vision, then fight Thanos, the pain in her arms had increased like it had when she broke it before. Bucky seemed to know this, and gently took her hands in his.
"Take a break," he pleaded, eyes wide and full of concern. He had worried about someone this much since he was a young adult in Brooklyn, looking after a reckless teenager named Steve. "Please. I'll watch Vision."
Wanda stared at him carefully, but nodded when Bucky didn't give up his position. With one final glance at Vision, who had not moved from where she had tended to him moments before, she gave in and laid down. With her head in Bucky's lap, he gently ran a hand through her hair as she shut her eyes, trying to let the memories of the battle fade away.
The two regular humans sat one of the farthest away from someone else, neither of them completely relaxed. Fury was cleaning up Hill first, while she held a tight grip on her gun while he use part of his shirt to wipe off blood from a gash down her arm. When he finished, Fury tied the cloth around tight and used it as a bandage, and they switched positions. Fury kept his one eye open on all the surroundings while his wounds were taken care of. It was quick and it was orderly, just like SHIELD.
Once they were both finished, they did a headcount of everyone around. One person was unaccounted for, Loki. Immediately, they both stood and searched for them, only to slightly relax when they found out he was behind them, just out of sight. Fury groaned as he watched the God of Mischief try to tie a strip of cloth around his arm on his own, and failing miserably.
Going against his better judgement, Fury holstered his gun and walked over to Loki, who looked at him suspiciously. Without words, Fury walked behind Loki and finished tying up the bandage for him. Loki managed a surprise nod, while Fury only scowled at him.
"This doesn't make up for trying to kill me."
T'Challa was fussing too much over Shuri in her opinion. "Brother! I am fine, Peter really helped."
T'Challa shot a looked at Spider-Man, who was sitting next to Shuri while she wiped at the cuts on his face. She was referring to her ankle, which was feeling much better thanks to Spider-Man's webs. She herself was doubtful at first thinking that it would work, but surprisingly, it kept her foot in place and relatively pain free. Peter tried to give a smile to the King of Wakanda, but hissed when Shuri poked on of the gashes too hard.
"Sorry," she whispered, holding back a small laugh. Peter looked at her and rolled his eyes while T'Challa turned away to watch the rest of the camp.
"I still don't think he likes me," he whispered, which made Shuri laugh even harder.
"You'll be fine. He just needs to warm up to you."
"I don't think he ever will…"
The two teenagers sat side by side, listening to the rest of the sounds. Which was nearly nothing really, just some occasional wind and whispers of the other heroes.
"Peter, do you think we'll ever get out of here?" Shuri asked seriously, looking over at him. She expected a grin, some sort of joke and play it off, but he was just as serious as her.
"I don't know," he sighed, and she knew he was being honest. "I hope so. I want to see other people again. I don't want to be stuck, here forever. I mean, we're not really dead right?"
"Right," Shuri said unconvincingly. She didn't know for sure. They had all supposedly 'died', but in the fight Peter had died and come back again. It was too confusing to think about, but at the same time, she wanted answers. They all wanted answers, but no one knew what they could be.
The last person was sitting all alone, trying to figure everything out. Strange sat on top of the cave, trying to find some solitude in the endless landscape of oddly orange sand, just alone in his thoughts. He didn't necessarily want to be alone, his mind could be a dangerous place by himself. But there was no other way to figure anything out. How did Thanos disappear? Why did the stone go along after?
The biggest one haunted him, the one with the most catastrophic impact. He had seen the future, the outcome that needed to win. And they had followed everything exactly through. So why where they left without the stone? Strange needed answers, but he also didn't want them. It was gone. All of it was gone. All their hard work, the fighting, the struggle to keep everything perfectly right was thrown to the curb. Nothing else would help them win, and Thanos was going to be the ruler of everything.
There was no use to life anymore in Strange's opinion. They were as good as dead anyway.
Not so far from their predicament in the soul stone, Thanos was considering his own options. He wasn't exactly sure how he escaped the soul stone's grasp either, but he was glad to be out of it. There was no way to die in the stone, it was practically death itself. But he would've never escaped from the heroes grasp, so he would've had to live in a eternal cycle of dying over and over again. Whatever that was didn't sound appealing. Thanos guess even away from the gauntlet, he still had some sort of connection to the stone, because of the sacrifice he had made, that let him escape.
But he was free, traveling through space in what seemed to be a sort of tunnel. He whizzed by planets and galaxies and solar systems, all the vanished right in a blink of an eye. He looked back and saw the stone behind him, darting around like a little ball of light. He needed to find a place to stop, a place he could rest.
An idea came to his head, and he was certain it was one of the best ones. Thanos thought of the place he needed to be, the place where he could rule. Half of its population was wiped out, there would be no resistance. They would be looking for a new ruler, something he could provide. Thanos was going back to Earth.
