Threat of Thanos

Roxy walks into the new Gymnasium Flora told her about, the one Aisha set up for the Winx and the Specialists. The walls were spelled against any and every kind of damage - particularly fire - and the whole thing is soundproofed so they don't disturb any classes with workout music. When she gets in there, she finds Bloom beating a punching bag to a sandy pulp. Once she puts a fist through it, Roxy jokingly says "Whatever the punching bag did, I think its sorry."

Bloom looks at her, then says "Letting off some steam. And not from Diaspro this time, thankfully. Though I almost wish it were her."

"So…what's wrong? I hear your all halfway to finishing this key-thing that's going to lock the Legendarium for good, so…"

Bloom sighs and wipes her bangs out of her eyes, saying "Remember those dreams I get sometimes, Roxy? Dreams of things that are happening while I'm dreaming?"

"Yeah, why?" "Well, last year they were mostly about Daphne. Likely because of the link between her and I. But sometimes they weren't. Sometimes they were about another threat entirely, one completely unrelated to the Trix and their succession of partners-turned-oppressors. His name's Thanos, best as I can tell anyway. Big guy, purple skin, golden glove on one hand, and an unhealthy-for-the-rest-of-the-universe obsession with the six Infinity Stones. In the dreams I've had, he's said he wants to kill exactly half the universe in order to 'save' it. How killing half the population of every planet he goes to saves it, I don't know. What I do know is that he needs all six Infinity Stones to do so instantly, and he can't. I obliterated the Aether, left no trace of it in Jane Foster and no trace of it for Malekith to absorb and use to try and turn the universe to darkness. And the Aether was also the Reality Stone. Point of fact, Thanos is going to be livid - as in, he's going to turn a color either close to royal purple or glowing red. He's already on the move, I've dreamed it, trying to find any of the Infinity Stones he can - there's the Power Stone on some other planet, I don't know the name of it, wasn't alive in Asgard long enough to take every lesson that could be taught. Its currently being guarded by what looks like some kind of space police or the equivalent of. And the Tesseract, the Space Stone, is on Asgard. Which means he'll come to Asgard for it. Which means I have to get it out of there, move it somewhere he'll never be able to follow."

Bloom sits down on a bench, and Roxy does the same while asking "If you destroyed one stone, why's he still going to try?"

"He doesn't know I destroyed it four years ago. I'm going to love telling him right before I behead him."

"What?! Why?"

"Why what? Why would I love telling him he'll never be able to instantly murder half of all life there is? Or why would I behead him?"

"Let's go with the first one."

"…I never told anybody this, not the Winx, not my brothers, nobody. But I've always had some kind of nightmares occupy my nights - or dream-visions, lately. At first, when I was growing up, it was Domino's destruction. The Three Ancestral Witches chasing Daphne with me in her arms while the castle collapsed around us. They looked like old hags, in all honesty. Scared me halfway to Valhalla at first. I grew out of being afraid of them after enough time, though I never understood why I kept seeing them until I let the memory finish playing out. Discovered I was adopted. I was a total mess on Earth, and the year before. I knew it, the rest of the Winx knew it. Heck, even the Wizards knew it. It was no secret that I was a boiling hot mess. But…between the explosion on the Bifrost and Loki's return to Earth…I thought he was dead. He let go of Gungir, which Thor was holding onto, who was being held up by his ankle above the Void underneath what was left of the Bifrost after I lost all control over my newly-fully-awakened powers. And while I thought he was dead…well, I didn't take it well. At all. I would've likely blamed Thor for it, seeing as he just had to go to Jotunheim despite Allfather's command not to. But I kept getting these vivid dreams of Loki being alive. Being somebody's prisoner. I'd have traded my magic in a heartbeat if it meant he'd have been back with me on Asgard, like nothing had happened and everything was back to mostly-normal. But the dreams I was seeing never failed to make me relieved he was dead if they were the alternative. Little did I know he wasn't dead, and they weren't just dreams - I think, knowing what I know now."

Roxy's expression turns horrified, and she asks "It was that bad?"

"Roxy, I love Loki more than you can imagine. I'm not going to hesitate to say he was my favorite brother while growing up - he cared, Thor didn't, that's how it went down - and magic is my life, basically, but I'd have given it up in a heartbeat if it would've brought him back to me. But the tortures I saw him going through, it always made me glad he wasn't alive to go through them - I was a bit of a naïve fool back then, it seems."

"Bloom, you said he fell off the Bifrost! How could…what's under the Bifrost?"

"Nothing, nothing but a waterfall that leads into the Void. A vast expanse of space that would kill most anyone. He's a master of magic, maybe that's how he survived - maybe he shielded himself somehow. At the time, all I could focus on was that my brother was gone. Not to make a sob-story out of it or anything, but there aren't enough words to describe it."

"So…so what happened to make him do…New York? The entire world must have heard about it, it was all over the news. That museum getting attacked - though there was no footage, just eyewitness reports - New York was all over the news for weeks, your description of him doesn't add up!"

"I know. It didn't make sense to me either at first. I knew, I just knew, there was something I was missing. Like how Loki got his spear in the first place. Turns out the Mind Stone was in that thing. But then, I don't know when to be honest, the memory of those dreams started nagging at me. Thanos knows how to break a person, Roxy. He didn't use the Mind Stone on Loki, at least not the way Loki used it, that sort of thing can be reversed with a whack over the head. No, he broke my brother - he and his children."

"This purple guy has children?!" Roxy's voice goes to a pitch Bloom though only Musa's could go, driving a small spike through Bloom's near eardrum for a moment.

"Not really. He conquers a planet, murders half the population, and takes a child from each to join him in his cause. I think I saw some of them, during those dreams. All of them what people on Earth wouldn't hesitate to call aliens. Skins and bodies of all kinds, abilities like telekinesis, etc. A year of torture can't be reversed with a hit over the head, and Thanos just sat on his throne and watched as my brother endured pain beyond what most could handle. His magic healed him, when he was allowed to use it of course. Whenever he was left alone for a stretch of time. One of Thanos' kids, the one that seems to be the oldest anyway, he's got telekinesis. Could just twitch a finger and move something. He liked to play with these long silver needle-things. Would poke them into Loki, until it was too much and he screamed. They wanted information out of him - first and foremost, the location of any Infinity Stones he knew of. The Tesseract, to be specific. It was cast to Earth a long time ago, to keep it out of Thanos' hands. Loki being an Odinson, he knew that. Thanos knew it was kept from him, but he didn't know where. After he got that piece of information out of Loki, I'm pretty sure he drained him dry over that year of everything else he deemed important to know. And finally made Loki go to Earth to retrieve the Tesseract. He was defeated, the Tesseract taken to Asgard, but somehow I think he wanted to be beaten. If he had been truly trying to get it to Thanos, at-all eager to please Thanos and aid him in his genocide, he'd have used it to head back to him. Instead, he brought an army to the place, forcing the creation of the team that defeated him. An army that was associated with Thanos, though not directly. Should've been the first thing to ask, why the Chitauri obeyed his commands."

Roxy digests that dumpster-sized truckload of information, then finally asks "Why not say something to somebody? Why not…I don't know…ask him if it was all real?"

Bloom sighs and rubs her head, absentmindedly summoning her Mythix wand to tap against her leg, saying "It didn't occur to me to do so. At first, I thought it was my grief for Loki manifesting in my sleep. Then I had more important things to worry about, like knocking out mercenaries from Earth before they shot enough tranquilizer darts into me to knock me out - I was burning through the drugs pretty fast, but I wasn't part dragon back then. And then, the war with the Trix happened and they met with Darkar a few weeks later. And then, well, I was preoccupied in year two. Somehow, getting kidnapped by the wizard who helped destroy your home planet tends to do that to you. And escaping was my entire focus, not just my main focus. Even without those memories, I know that for a fact. But sometime between the whole mess of getting Loki's spear back and now, I started wondering why exactly New York happened like it did. Happened at all, actually. Loki's far too smart, and knowledgeable about magic and artifacts with magic, to not know how to use the Tesseract. It's the Space Stone, it can send you anywhere you want to go. My eventual conclusion was that he was playing for time. Trying to let himself lose without looking like he did so. For instance, he tricked Thor into getting into the cage he was being held in, and let it fall a few thousand miles to the earth below."

"WHAT?!"

"That's the initial response. But, Asgardian's are built a lot sturdier than humans are, Roxy. They age a heck of a lot slower, living around five thousand years while humans live a hundred. They wear out slower, you might say. And so, they don't get hurt nearly as easily - otherwise Brunhilde would've drank herself to death years ago, I'm telling you. So that fall wouldn't have killed Thor, and Loki was likely counting on Thor using Mjolnir to smash his way out of it. Which he says he did."

"Oh. Good point. So…so why now? Why the venting about this now?"

"Thanos. He wanted to stay in the shadows - that's why Loki was sent to Earth instead of the big guy or his kids. But now, with the Power Stone being kept from him as well, it's only a matter of time before he finds it and heads to Asgard next. He's already started actively searching for the Stones, I saw so last night in another dream-vision. Two are on Earth, the Time Stone and the Mind Stone. One is on Asgard, the Space Stone. The Power Stone is wherever it is. And the Soul Stone is still missing. So, with his best chance at getting the Space Stone, which would enable him to go anywhere at a mere thought, gone and actively keeping it safe in defiance of him, he's going to retaliate. And he's going to come for Loki, no question there. He not only failed to get him the Space Stone, he cost him the Mind Stone as well. He'll take vengeance on Loki if he gets his way, I know it."

"That…that really sucks. Never thought I'd feel bad for a guy that killed a bunch of people, but…but I feel really bad for your brother. No offense about the first part."

"None taken, that's how it went down. Yes, he killed a lot of people. But I don't think it was ever his choice. It was likely kill a tiny percentage of a planet's population then, or give Thanos the means to nearly immediately get the means to kill half of all life. Which may well have included all those people. The lesser of two evils and all that."

Bloom's phone suddenly buzzes, and she gets a text from Flora saying to meet them in Daphne's classroom. "Looks like the time for going over past mistakes and things I completely missed is over. We've got a Silver Spear to find. And after everything is over, I'm going to find and kill Thanos. Keep half the universe from being killed."

Roxy finds she doesn't really know what to say to that - she's clearly been too long in classes and not out fighting with the Winx, because she's gotten too used to people who aren't Bloom.

AN: Hey, everyone. Sorry about the wait again - had to write a lab report, not that easy. At any rate, Bloom's got one eye on Thanos - or most of her dreams, anyway. This idea occurred to me after watching IW - Thanos gets the Space Stone, and then he's just everywhere, a wormhole swallows him instantly. So, what with Loki being depicted as being a 'Master of Magic' according to Hogun, why couldn't he simply do the same? And in the movies, it apparently took him around a year to finally use it to get back to Earth - what gives?! My little explanation for it. And since seeing things that are happening in real life doesn't seem like the kind of power one just suddenly pops up with, but more like something that comes with Bloom's full set of powers, it seems a viable explanation. PS. my Border Collie that I've had for nearly twelve years is really old. Mom took her to the vet. If there's a sad chapter coming up, that's why. Because I'm extremely sad about losing my first - and amazing - dog.