Ensoulment
by Valerie Vancollie
valeriev84 at hotmail dot com
Notes: So new chapter: good news. Unfortunately I also have some bad news, namely that I won't be able to update tomorrow, but I should be back to posting as usual on Saturday. Sorry!
Now, onto the chapter itself. I am quite curious as to what people think of the revelation within!
Soul World, 2018 A.D.
Water, it was so vital for the survival of all but a fraction of the beings in the universe, himself included, and yet Thanos was starting to hate it. It and the color orange. Or at least to hate seeing them in his dreams. Strange they were not being connected with delight or fondness as witnessing them signaled he was about to see his little one again, but then he would rather resent them than her.
"How many people did you kill today?" Gamora demanded, sitting in the water.
Her appearance made Thanos tempted to tell her to stand and dry herself off, but he caught the words in time.
"I have achieved my goal, there is no need to kill anyone else," he said instead.
"Not even if those wronged seek you out for vengeance or thinking they can reverse what you wrought?"
"No one can reverse what I did, it is done."
Gamora snorted, leaning back against one of the pavilion's pillars to look up at him. "And what of those seeking retribution?"
"They will not succeed."
"But will they live?"
Thanos supposed it was a fair question. Ever since they had first met, his little one had seen him kill trillions. All with a very important purpose, of course, but still it had been the most consistent thing he had done ever since she was but a little girl.
"Yes," Thanos told her. "They will."
Her eyes grew wide with disbelief. "Why?"
"Because they cannot hope to harm me, not with the Infinity Stones, and I have already achieved all I set out to. More death is not necessary."
"Necessary," she shook her head as she rose to her feet.
"Yes, necessary," Thanos retorted, anger finally leaking into his own voice.
Her continued questioning of him was becoming tiresome. He would accept it if it was the only way to continue to see her here, but he would at least attempt to steer the conversation onto more pleasant topics. Or ones he was at least interested in.
"Who were they? Your companions on Knowhere?" he asked.
"My companions, or just Quill?" Gamora asked with an arched eyebrow.
How well she knew him, at least at times. Thanos nearly frowned at the reminder of some of what she had said and how clearly she did not understand then.
"We can commence with him who would kill you," he said.
"At my request!" she shot back, fists clenched. "He had promised me he would."
Now his anger flared within him as he finally allowed it to. "He should not dare to even contemplate such an action."
"It was necessary."
"It was pointless."
Gamora's eyes flashed and Thanos went deathly still as he saw their color shift, just for an instant. It was so fast he could have dismissed it as a trick of the light, but he knew what he had seen. His little one had brown eyes, always had, not green eyes.
"Who are you?" Thanos demanded darkly, fists clenching as he took a step closer to the pavilion and the one who looked like his daughter.
A vicious smile crossed those familiar green lips as an unfamiliar and a new look entered the once again brown eyes. "Finally noticed that?"
Finally? Did that mean it had never been Gamora whom he saw here, in his dreams?
"You are not dreaming," the specter replied. "You never have been when here."
Thanos resisted the temptation to look around, refusing to leave himself vulnerable to an enemy who may already have wormed their way past so many of his defenses. "Oh? Then where are we?"
"Soul World, the reality within the Soul Stone itself. A pocket dimension almost."
The words triggered the faintest sense of recognition within him and Thanos knew he had heard a whisper of a rumor hinting at what his opponent spoke of. He had tried to uncover more information on the Soul World, but he had not succeeded, the information almost entirely lost over the millions of years since the Infinity Stones had come into being.
"You have still not told me who you are," Thanos replied. "Are you too much of a coward?"
The other laughed, though the Gamora disguise melted away to reveal a small boy with black hair and the green eyes Thanos had caught a glimpse of earlier. He still did not immediately recognize his opponent, though.
"I was rather more curious to see if you could figure it out," the boy said, but even as he spoke he shifted and changed, growing taller. "But then you probably were far too certain of yourself. You had said no resurrections this time when you killed me."
"Loki," Thanos bit out, the words revealing his identity a fraction of a second before visual recognition followed as the form he knew appeared before him.
"Thanos," Loki replied, a wicked smile on his face.
Now he was paying more attention to his surroundings and what they felt like, Thanos could tell the godling spoke the truth. He was not asleep as he had always thought. That he had not noticed this before was a testament to how greatly he already missed his daughter and how desperately glad he had been to see her once more after he had thought that he never would. He would make the prince pay for manipulating him thus. And for betraying him as he had on Miðgarðr.
First, though, he had to know precisely what was transpiring.
"How are you here?" Thanos demanded. "I killed you personally before acquiring the Soul Stone or achieving my goal."
"Aye, you did. But if you had not then you would not have found the Soul Stone as it would not have been on Vormir."
"It was placed there millennia ago."
Loki nodded once. "And there it was to return whenever those who had sacrificed for it lost the Soul Stone. Or died."
"You wish to claim you were in possession of the Soul Stone?" Thanos laughed.
The mere idea was nonsensical, he would have sensed the Stone on the godling. Not to mention his former slave had not been nearly powerful enough to have the Soul Stone's power at his disposal. Even he had felt it was the most powerful of the six when he had acquired it.
"Did you think none would oppose your demented quest to reshape the entire universe in your chosen image?" Loki demanded, his words ringing familiar to Thanos and confirming the godling was at the very least aware of his other encounters with Gamora here. "Plans were put into place long ago. You asked me how I was here, well I did not lie that being sacrificed to the Soul Stone tied one to it."
Thanos' focus sharpened. If that were true, then Gamora was present in this... dimension.
"She is," Loki confirmed. "But she has no desire to interact with you."
The continued proof the godling could read his thoughts irritated Thanos, but he cast it aside in favor of focusing on what else had been revealed. "You were sacrificed to the Stone."
"Aye, as I said plans were put into place long ago. Plans which removed the Soul Stone from Vormir until my death," Loki replied. "Therefore had you not killed me, you would not have found it."
"Then killing you was useful as well as pleasurable."
The godling laughed. "Still you think you possess the advantage and are unassailable."
"I have already won, princeling. I achieved my goal."
"Aye, as did my mother."
The words and confidence with which they were spoken made Thanos narrow his eyes as he studied his former slave. That the godling was more powerful and cunning than he had at first assumed had already been proven when Loki had managed to thwart the invasion of Miðgarðr despite the compulsion Thanos had planted deep in his mind with the Mind Stone. Still, he knew the jötunn was a master manipulator and illusionist, so he knew better than to believe his words at face value, no matter how sincere the godling appeared. Still, he also knew how there were times when those such as Loki would speak the truth, knowing it was less likely to be believed.
"My death at your hands was part of that plan, clearing the way for final step to commence; the ensoulment itself," Loki laughed, eyes alight with a crazed fire Thanos recognized only all too well. "Have you not found the gauntlet more difficult to use with every passing day? It's power more and more angry?"
For the first time fear awoke within Thanos, though he refused to allow it to show and hardly even acknowledged it himself. He would not allow himself to be incited into a panic based on mere words, particularly not from so renown a liar or word smith as the famed silvertongue. The fact remained, though, that Loki's words rang far too true for Thanos' own comfort. The gauntlet had become harder to wear, its power draining him as much as it had once energized him and quickened his magic.
The sudden doubts angered Thanos and he began to reach out for what he could feel of the dimension around him, seeking a way out. He would not allow himself to become trapped here, in this fake world, with a being he had already killed. The godling could claim whatever he wished, but Thanos knew he had killed him and there had been no tricks or magic at work, so there would be no resurrection. He did not suffer betrayal lightly. Once outside, he could deal with whatever was truly transpiring.
"Aye, indeed, let us leave and finish this once and for all," Loki said, palms suddenly aglow with magic.
Only instead of the green-gold hue Thanos had witnessed before, the godling's magic was now a bright orange. Then his world went white.
Tada! So what do you think? Did anyone see that coming?
As I mentioned at the top, there won't be a chapter tomorrow. I hadn't planned to do that with the little revelation here, but it was this or add in another day without an update and I figured people would rather have this. But the next chapter will be on Rhea and involve both the Avengers & Thanos!