If the Norns watched from above, they would bear witness to a Jotun warrior running in the green grass alongside a small mortal woman toward an onslaught of terror. They would ask why, shout stop, beg them to turn. But if they looked very closely, they would see that the mortal's feet were leaving the ground. They would notice that deep cracks were streaking from her jet black eyes, marring her porcelain skin, and wisps of crimson fire were leaping from her shoulders as she ascended. They would no longer see simply a small mortal.
But the villains across the battlefield saw only two, unfamiliar blue figures racing toward an army of alien dogs alongside five colorful characters and a pathetic cadre of tribal warriors. They would see knives of ice, fists of steel, bolts of energy, flames of red magic. And they would be unimpressed.
That was the only reality they would know.
The Norns saw all, though. They watched Jane Foster weave a deception for the villains and then throw out her arms, screaming to the heavens as the Aether molded further, deeper into the fabric of her being.
Jane set her sights on the glowing red stone in Thanos' gauntlet and remembered the Aether's words to the Avengers.
Acceptance of that strength, that power, by the wielder protects him or her from the devastation my siblings and I can bring to a weak host. Jane Foster rejected the Aether when it first entered her body, and the fight against it almost destroyed her.
"I accept," she whispered.
Across the field, Thanos' knuckle stung as he surveyed his army. A meager hundred, perhaps two, stood against him. He shook out his hand and grinned. His triumph was inevitable.
Jane ascended higher, reached deeper, asked for the Aether's help, begged the Aether to learn with her, through her. She pleaded for it to fight Thanos.
"I accept you," she called.
Thanos grit his teeth. The gauntlet…burned him. He flexed his hand. A nuisance to be ignored.
Jane opened her eyes, her heart, her soul to the gift of the Aether. She spoke to the Aether within her and the Aether she did not possess.
"Thanos wants to use you to destroy and to harm," she said. "To wipe out entire civilizations and bury their histories and their futures. But I want us to learn and grow and build. Together!" She breathed in and exhaled slowly. "I accept all of you!" she screamed.
A roar ripped across the field as Thanos' mighty hand lifted on its own, the ruby stone on his knuckle gleaming brilliantly as Jane Foster unmasked herself.
"You!" he hissed, eyes widening.
The battle paused as blinding red light poured from her body like blazing fire.
"ACCEPT ME!" she cried.
With her scream, the stone in the gauntlet splintered, cracked, burst, and rose as the oily spindles Jane remembered so well from her time on the Dark World. They lifted and flew up and away from a cursing Thanos, bounced as they scented the air, located their missing piece, and raced toward the glowing figure in the sky.
"YES!"
Jane opened her arms wider and accepted the Aether as it melted into her pores, dove into her mouth and eyes and ears, and plunged into her bloodstream, filling her with rapture and curiosity and delight.
And POWER!
Tony Stark watched from the sky, Peter Parker hanging from his metal arms, and he worried.
Loki Odinson watched from the grass, and he cheered.
James Barnes watched from the hill, and he marveled.
Steve Rogers watched from the dirt, and he whispered 'one down.'
And Thanos marched forward, teeth bared, spitting his fury, and raised his great staff toward Jane Foster as his ghoulish lieutenant rose to meet her. "Retrieve my stone!"
Jane let the Jotun illusion fade to reveal a pristine face of white, no ebony cracks, no worry lines, no marks of exhaustion. She radiated a perfection she had never known, an acceptance she never dared dream. She watched the ghoul approach, and the Aether and Jane smiled. As one.
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"We have a breach in zones 4, 7, and 8," Shuri reported to her brother over the comm.
Static crackled. "Yes, I can see that."
She huffed. "A thank you would suffice, brother."
Wong raised his fists, two circular discs spinning wide and fast around them, as he stood outside Vision's protected space, watching the closed door to the room. "Which zone are we in?"
A loud thud against the door sounded over Shuri's response.
He grunted. "I'll assume either 4, 7, or 8."
"You assume correctly!" she yelled, stepping away from the panel and locking her fists into two oversized gauntlets. "If they breach the door, Vision will still be protected behind the barrier."
Wong crouched lower. "Sure, he'll be protected," he grumbled.
A second, third, and fourth collision echoed around the room, and a piercing whine like a wounded animal turned Bruce's stomach. "Those things are messy," he said, watching the video feed of the field as hundreds of robotic, alien beasts poured from that spaceship. He searched inside his head for the Other Guy, but received a slammed door in his mental face. He was being punished for forcing the Hulk out of hiding on Asgard, and honestly, after that huge wolf, he could go the rest of his and the Hulk's life without seeing, hearing, or smelling another dog.
Again and again, the dogs slammed into the door. Vision paced within the protected corner of the room, glancing at the screens above Bruce Banner each time he passed them. He hoped for a single glimpse of Wanda to confirm she was uninjured. But the feed was polluted with dust and kicked-up grass and dirt. The army of hounds meshed together into a violent wave of teeth and limbs.
Waiting was torment for him. But waiting without any word from those on the battlefield…
"Shuri, do you read?"
The girl's eyes lit up. She raced back to the panel. "Yes, Captain Rogers!"
"Jane's got the Reality Stone."
A cheer rose from the group, energizing and gifting them extra patience. Except for Wong, who shook his legs out a few times before squatting back into his crouch and mumbling "About time."
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Loki knew his part to play. He tore his eyes from the wonder of Jane's transformation and searched the battlefield. He found Wanda Maximoff fighting a dozen or more of Thanos' hellish hounds. She was distracted, weakening. She was losing.
"Wanda!" he shouted and caught her eye. She looked to him and then to the great marvel that was Jane and the Aether hanging in the heavens and toying with her enemy. Wanda nodded as several dogs leapt onto her. For a second of terror, Loki could not see her, but a burst of red energy propelled the dogs up and away, leaving Wanda free to rise above them.
Loki dodged a hound, generated three ice daggers in his palm and imbedded them into the mindless beasts. He threw a hand out and a dozen replicas appeared, all bearing swords and knives and blunt weapons of shimmering ice as they fought the dogs. He raced forward toward Thanos, Wanda clearing his path as more and more of the dogs dropped from the spacecraft.
"Distract her!" He yelled to Wanda as Thanos waved the dark woman forward. They all must be focused on us, he thought, as a streak of gold in his periphery blurred across the cloudless sky toward the spacecraft. He clapped his palms together, and a dazzling surge of ice sprang free, covering the ground and rushing toward Thanos. The Mad Titan swung his great weapon and the ice burst, shards shooting into the air around him.
He needed more doubles, Loki thought, and a dozen more of his Jotun self appeared. And more of the dreaded dogs fell from the sky. Dozens upon dozens raced toward them. Wanda was back on the ground with him, her hands weaving intricate bursts of power and laying waste to the hounds at her heels. But she was one, and they were hundreds as the horned woman, half of her face melted and still wet, stalked toward Wanda.
Loki generated a staff of ice and vaulted over a dozen snapping jaws to kick the woman squarely in the chest. She stumbled, sneered, and struck at him. Staffs collided over and over. They matched well, neither landing a blow until Loki disappeared and reappeared over her shoulder, sending an ice dagger into the woman's right arm. She did not cry out, but fell to a knee, and a dozen dogs bounded toward Loki, his doubles winking out of existence as his concentration was pulled away.
"Enough!" a voice said from behind him as a meaty hand palmed the back of his head and twisted him around.
Loki gasped as the smiling face of Thanos loomed above him.
"Did you think I would not recognize the stink of your failure?" Thanos asked in a purr. "I have played your mind like a fine instrument and know all of your pathetic tricks. This disguise cannot fool one such as me." The Mad Titan grasped him by the throat, the biting metal of the gauntlet once again crushing, and lifted him off his feet. "I gave you the gift of mercy, fallen son. After you failed me and hid yourself and tried to steal my prize. But you dared to survive. To attempt to fight me again on this pathetic planet." Thanos brought him close, his rancid breath souring the precious oxygen Loki gasped for around the gauntlet's squeeze. "You are nothing," he breathed. "You should worship me as your god, weakling. I will show you no mercy today."
Loki kicked, clawed at Thanos' fingers, his mind and heart crying out to his love, to his brother, to his new colleagues, and he hated himself once again for all of the debts he would never repay. He hated himself for failing. Again. Always. And he detested Thanos for playing such a key role in his greatest failure. Loki breathed in what little air he could and spat in Thanos' face. The titan sneered and used Loki's tattered cape to wipe the spit from his jaw.
Barely twenty feet away, Wanda Maximoff screamed as Thanos raised Loki high, a sacrifice for all to see, and tightened his iron grip.
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Tony streaked past Jane as Thanos' wizard threw his first attack at her. She was smiling.
He shook his head and checked on his human cargo. "You doing okay, kid?"
Peter Parker nodded. Tony couldn't see his face under the mask, but he could only imagine Peter's expression of teenaged shock and awe as his head jerked one way and then the other around the battlefield.
"Great. Because we're here."
Peter looked up at the hulking spacecraft. "Ready, Mr. Stark."
"Alley oop!" Tony yelled as he spun once, twice in midair, and then launched Spiderman toward the spacecraft. Webs shot from Peter's wrists, and Tony admired the kid's grace as he climbed higher and higher, the satchel strapped to his back never moving. "Friday," Tony said, "keep me posted on the kid."
"Will do, boss," Friday confirmed. "Also, something just entered the atmosphere about sixty miles south of us."
"Ours or theirs?"
"Ours."
Tony grinned. Even Friday sounded pleased. "Send the welcoming committee, would you?"
Tony didn't hear Friday's response, because the sound was drowned out by an earsplitting scream across the battlefield. He found its source, Wanda, then followed her eye. He watched the massive purple thing that was Thanos as he raised Loki up by the throat, legs kicking, body twisting.
Crack!
Tony jerked to a stop as the sound echoed like a sonic boom. Loki's head lolled to the side, his arms and legs shook once, twice, then hung limp.
"No," he whispered as he slowly turned to locate Jane.
She hadn't noticed yet. She was trading blows with the wizard. Dancing back and forth, flinging fire and dodging weapons. Laughing at his every attempt. She casually glanced down to check the progress on the field, and Tony saw her double take. Pinpointed the very second she realized. The second she saw the body. The second she spasmed and a poisonous cloud of angry black sprang from her heart.
Tony saw the second Jane Foster blacked out the sun with her grief.
