Chapter 41
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It was hot.
Her skin burned.
Energy pulsed through her.
She grinned as she looked as her Dark Dimension form slowly fading, Dormammu was nodding slowly at her as she shifted realities.
Raising herself from the ground, standing up slowly as she looked at her hands.
All the way up to her elbows, her skin was stained black like her Dark Dimension form, the ever-expanding and eternal movement of universes was on her skin. Her claws were long and sharp, acting like weapons if needed.
"Sal?"
She looked up to see Peter's running form. He leapt at her, hugging her tightly just as she hugged him back. He was taller than her, enough that she could bury her face into his neck. His nose was in her hair as they just held onto each other.
"You're alive!" She muttered into his skin, feeling the warm remnants of disgusting Magic. It wasn't her Magic. She didn't like it on him. "I didn't know if I was the only one back. I was alone for a while. I came back first."
"Peter," Strange called out. "Get over here. Salem, go to the Avengers Compound. You can teleport. I'll get Wong and we'll bring everyone over there. Another Thanos is fighting us."
"Another purple fucker?" She asked, walking backwards. "Got it!"
She twisted on her heels, leaving with a wink at Peter.
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The Compound was almost a wasteland with how the whole area was demolished. There was no life besides for the people there. Steve was standing far away from Thanos, standing alone.
Children of Thanos, Chitauri, Sakaarans, Outriders and Chitauri Gorillas were quickly coming onto the ground.
He was ready to fight Thanos and his horde of soldiers by himself.
Salem appeared a few feet behind him, gently putting her hand on his back as she let LILITH send multiplying gelbots to attach to his suit, creating a better, more resilient suit. It covered any areas that had been ripped, reinforcing the whole thing, including adding a hardening layer across his shield. The thing was circular again, but the broken area was reinforced with plain silver gelbots.
"You didn't think we'd let you do this alone, did you?"
He turned, relief coming over him, "Salem."
"This isn't a one-man army, Cap," She reassured him with a smirking grin, standing beside him as she rotated one of her shoulders, readying herself for a fight. Her suit no longer had sleeves, cutting it sharp at her shoulders but keeping the high neckline. Her arms were exposed and so was the darkness of her powers.
"Thanos might have a horde of men," She said, feeling the way energy shifted behind them. "But you've got an army."
Dozens of gold and purple portals opened behind them, letting people slowly shift through and get onto the battleground.
Falcon swooped in above them as more and more people filtered out of the portals.
Okoye, Shuri, and Black Panther were the first, all equipped to fight.
Salem shared a look with Shuri, turning to show her the new claws she had. Shuri shook her head and smiled as other people followed through with them.
Doctor Strange came with Drax, Mantis, Star-Lord and Spider-Man, all of which Salem had left at Titan.
So many more came and came and came. Black Panther and his Wakandan army, Valkyrie and the Asgardians, Wong and the Masters of the Mystic Arts and several Ravager ships. Bucky. Groot. Scarlet Witch. Wasp.
Even Pepper Potts in her lilac Iron suit.
Giant-Man emerged from the rubble of the Avengers facility with Professor Hulk, War Machine, and Rocket. The Avengers, Guardians, Wakandans, Asgardians, and Ravagers took up battle positions.
They all stood across from Thanos' forces, ready to fight.
Salem shifted her own energy, summoning her own fighters from the Dark Dimension. They were the Mindless Ones, controlled by Dormammu or herself. They were huge, looking like Gollums as they stomped over, standing in various positions.
"AVENGERS—" Captain America said, summoning Mjolnir and catching it. "Assemble."
Darkling tutted, wiggling her fingers to relieve some of the pre-fight nerves, before launching herself alongside everyone else.
To let a Darkling fight, even one without powers, to let them have no restraint, was a dangerous action.
Oh, fuck it.
No one was letting her fight.
No one could stop her now.
She sliced through each member of Thanos' horde that she came across. She didn't just cut them, she went through them, leaving dissolving bodies as her Magic absorbed their power and energy. She took, and she sliced, and she sliced, and she took.
Her body was covered in blood but she didn't care. She wasn't the only one like that. Others were covered, drenched as they fought. It was part of fighting, of battle. You couldn't win without some sort of injury and blood, of either you or the enemy.
It didn't matter that Salem had Magic, that her powers were flowing through her and out into the world, she was angry and anger meant pain and blood were spilt.
She went crashing through the enemy, careful to keep her powers away from her allies but always cutting through those against her. She had years worth of rage to go through.
There was no stopping a Darkling in the thralls of bloodlust and battle.
Magic flowed around her, the dark mist followed her every move as she used her few years of training to get through the horde and to the main area. She split from the others, running to the area full of the horde and taking them down within minutes.
A huge circle appeared around her, the horde surrounding her but not wanting to come near her. Their kin lay slain on the ground around her, and all Darkling did was wipe away the tiny blood splattered from her cheek.
Salem paused, touching her comm, "LILITH, connect me to everyone. Why do I hear La Cucaracha?"
"Does anyone see an ugly brown van anywhere?" Captain asked.
"Yes. But you're not gonna like where it's parked,"
"Scott," Iron Man said. "How long do you need to get that thing working?"
She nodded to herself, realising what was happening.
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Tony's helmet went down, turning off the comms for a moment as he looked at Doctor Strange, "Hey. You said two out of 14 million, we win, yeah? Tell me this is one of them. Tell me I don't lose her again. I swear if I do…"
"If I tell you what happens, it won't happen," He said. "But losing her is one of the options."
Tony took a shuddering breath, sneering in disgust before leaving to fight again.
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"Peter activated Instant Kill," LILITH said.
"Shit," She muttered. "It must be bad if he did. Location now."
Darkling broke the nose of the creature nearest to her before she jumped, letting her Magic take her upwards until she was walking on the air. She put on her sunglasses, letting LILITH examine the whole fighting field before finding the directions to Peter's location. She lifted a hand, raising the horde around her into the air before slamming them into the ground, killing most of them and fatally injuring the others in the rubble.
She ran towards the location, dodging the beams from Thanos' ship.
Some of the beams were aimed at Peter, and that made Salem go even faster, running through the air to him. The closer she came, the fast Peter was brought away from her. She tried to catch up but it was futile. She gave up.
She let her powers consume her, teleporting her a lot closer.
She got there just as he was thrown off the pegasus, landing harshly on the ground with a roll.
He landed on his back, unsettling the ground as he grunted, trying to stop himself from going too far in. He felt the beams coming near him. He closed his eyes, already knowing what was going to happen next, waiting for the blaring pain. He only felt the heat of being near them, but he didn't feel the pain. He only felt the pressure of another body on him as they were shoved deeper into the ground by a blast.
Even with the stabbing pain in his shoulders and back, he opened his eyes to see the reason why he was warned of going near darkness.
It was all-consuming, taking whatever it wanted without the light. Without light, it took everything into its grasp, hoarding it as one does with things. Darkness in human forms was even more dangerous.
Salem's face was contorted in pain, gritting her teeth as she kneeled over him, keeping blasts off him. It went into her back, burning like nothing before but she didn't even make a sound, only taking a slow breath as the heat increased. She absorbed the energy.
Her lips curled back into a feral grin, letting her glance down to his split lips before returning to his eyes. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, yeah," He nodded, slowly sitting up and hissing. "Just a lot of bruising now."
When she clasped his hand to help him up, he felt the warmth on his arm and in his chest. He just scanned her eyes for anything, absolutely anything that could tell him she had a similar feeling. He couldn't stand the thought of there being nothing.
But she wasn't looking at him, she looked at the newcomer.
"Took your time, didn't you?"
Carol Danvers laughed, "Tony's daughter, right? Same attitude, different form."
"Stark ego is legendary," She smiled, taking the gauntlet out of Peter's hands and passing it over. "Here."
The other women surrounded them, taking Danvers' side as they fought through the horde. Salem stayed, healing most of Peter's injuries.
"Go fight," He said. "They need you."
Salem's hand went to his side, pressing and he winced. "I thought so. Give me a minute and I'll heal you. I can't leave you like this."
He smiled at that, laughing a little as he sat down on the rubble.
At one instance, both of them looked up, gazing towards the fight for the Stark Gauntlet. Peter hissed as he stood, still feeling the aftershocks of pain while Salem began her sprint. He followed soon after.
It took too long to get there, watching as Tony, Thor, Steve and Carol fought Thanos, trying to get the gauntlet.
Tony stayed on the ground, watching his daughter sprinting towards him. Any member of the horde that came into her path was instantly obliterated without her pausing, only stepping over each corpse.
Salem skidded to a stop next to him, helping him sit up. He did, using her to steady himself as he looked over at Doctor Strange.
The Sorcerer lifted two fingers before putting one down, glancing between the Starks.
Tony nodded.
"I am inevitable," Thanos snapped his fingers.
Tony watched the horror come over his daughter's face, seeing her finally realise what was happening. She clasped her hand into his, trying to absorb some of the gamma radiation. She knew what needed to happen and Tony wasn't going to let it be her.
Starks had a knack for revenge.
"I am…" He looked at her, tears in his eyes. "Tony...Stark."
A blinding flash of white came over both of them, burning through them like hot lightning.
Thanos could only watch in horror as his army was destroyed, and all his followers, servants and slaves disintegrated before his eyes. He sat down and mourned, feeling his whole body not be erased from existence, but rather ripped by Dark Magic.
He watched Darkling glare at him, eyes hooded and pure, unhinged rage within the depths of her darkness.
He let her rip him apart, cell by cell.
Tony leaned on the nearest rock, pale and shaky. He just laughed softly, sitting up as the others tried to get him to lie down. "Stop. Look. It seems like I will die here."
"Don't even think of that, Dad," Salem said. "You can't. You can't leave me. You can't leave Stark Industries to me. I'm only a kid."
"You're more mature than I was at twenty-one," He smiled, and lifted a hand to put it on her cheek.
Nothing could prepare her for this.
A single, dark tear dripped down her cheek unknowingly. Her skin bubbled with Magic, darkening in places until parts of her were universes and planets and creation while others were plain human. It crackled in the air as Tony Stark's suit began to power down completely, signalling his death.
He muttered his last words to her.
He died with a smirk and a hand on her cheek, trying to wipe away her dark tears.
Her grief shook the universe.
She screamed and cried refusing to believe. It took all of seven seconds for her to go quiet, her voice going hoarse instantly as the others around her took a knee.
They kneeled.
From king and god, to servant and saviour, to the smallest people and those with the most influence, they all kneeled, watching as Salem cried over her father's body.
They all knew about death. It was not avoidable.
It took all of ten minutes for everyone to decide it was time to leave.
She refused to move, staying there, looking at her father's dead face.
Stephen kneeled down next to her, a hand on her shoulder, "Salem, are you coming?"
"No," She said, gazing out into the dark sky above them. "Not yet. I'll… I'll go when I'm ready."
"Okay," He nodded and left her to her grief, alone on the battlefield.
An hour later, Salem stood up.
She took a step back, turning on her heel before she stepped into the air of the Dark Dimension.
She changed dimensions and universes like it was easy as breathing, never breaking a sweat since the stones were destroyed and all remnants of her power limitations were gone.
"Dormammu," She yelled into the void of the universe. "I need a word with you!"
"What," He appeared, his huge eyes narrowing in mischief as he came. "Is it, child? Has the moment come?"
"You knew?"
"Of course, I knew. I was the one to make sure this moment happens," He said slowly, taking his time in speaking as he felt the rage coming from her increase. "It has to happen or you would never have been created, and you were created with Chaos and Harmony fused."
"Was this avoidable?" She asked, hands clenched by her sides as her eyes watered. "Was his death necessary?"
"It is the will of the universe that Tony Stark dies here and now," He said. "He has done his part, acted wonderfully and fulfilled his necessary role in the timeline. While his end now is your beginning, you start your life years ago."
"Right," She took a shuddering breath in, blinking away tears. "So I couldn't do anything to stop him from dying?"
"No," Dormammu said. "You would have created another timeline if you did, and even then, in any other timeline, he would die. While you only exist within this universe of yours, there are multiple versions of Tony Stark and multiple versions of this battle that will result in the deaths of many."
She nodded solemnly.
Her father's last words were the only thing in her mind.
"I love you."
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