Chapter 4: Sword Hunt Part 2 – I Spit on Your Glaive

EARTH-TRN1111 – OCTOBER 17, 2023

Harley and I stumbled out of the TemPad portal onto the battlefield that used to be the Avengers Compound. Smoke drifted from the ruins into the sky, which was dominated by the two-mile-wide form of the Sanctuary II. You heard it here, folks: the Sanctuary II is officially two miles wide. Pitiful compared to the First Order's Supremacy, but still pretty #$%&ing gigantic.

First things first, though. I quickly snapped the TemPad portal shut behind us, in case Cap planned on following us through and ruining my plan.

"Woah…so that's what it looks like," Harley said, gazing at the ship.

"Yeah. Damien Hirst's Fate of the Universe doesn't really do it justice."

A trio of Outriders charged towards us, and I grabbed a pair of guns from my pouches to shoot at them. Two Outriders went down, while Harley swung her mallet into the third's head with a dull crunch.

"So where the hell is Thanos?" Harley asked.

I looked around for a few seconds, and then saw him across the battlefield, taking on two Masters of the Mystic Arts. "There!" I pointed. "We gotta get over there. And…if I'm correct about where we are in the battle, we gotta do it fast. In a couple minutes Scarlet Witch is gonna go full 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' on his ass and crack his blade in half."

"Got it."

We charged across the battlefield, dodging attacks from Chitauri, Outriders, and in one instance, a Necrocraft, until Valkyrie destroyed it. And then, when we were only several yards from Thanos, who stepped in our way but Corvus Glaive. "Who the hell's this creep?" Harley asked.

"Who are you?" Corvus asked.

"Come on, we're trying to get to your boss here!" I yelled. "We're on the clock too. Just let us by!"

"You shall not pass," Corvus said, whirling his glaive around. "Thanos will be victorious."

"And I'm not saying he won't! I quite frankly don't care because I never plan on returning to this timeline, I just want his blade, for #$&%'s sake!"

"You're not getting it. Whoever you are, you will both die here today-"

Harley swung her mallet straight into Corvus' junk. "OOF!" he grunted, followed by a pathetic squeal as he keeled over.

"Heyyy…," I said. "I wanted to do something like that to him."

Harley stared at me. "Oh, I'm sorry, you were actually gonna do something and not just have a pissing contest with him all day?"

Well, she had me there. "Just keep going," I said. "We're almost there."

We turned and headed for Thanos again, but then suddenly something stabbed me through the back. I looked down to see…ugh. The tip of a certain glaive protruding from my chest. "Are you kidding me?" I groaned.

Corvus Glaive leapt on me from behind, knocking me to the ground. He grabbed his weapon from my back and said, "I'm gonna enjoy this."

Harley kneed him in the chest, knocking him off me, and then swung her mallet at him again. I got up and grabbed one of my guns, firing off a few quick rounds at Corvus. He deflected the attacks off his glaive, and then slashed off the head of Harley's mallet with it.

"Uh oh," she said.

I blew away a pair of Chitauri bearing down on me, then returned my guns to their pouches and picked up one of the Chitauri's futuristic blasters.

Harley did a jump-kick into Corvus' chest, knocking him backwards and preempting another glaive slash. I took aim with the Chitauri blaster and fired a laser at Corvus. It ricocheted off his glaive, but distracted him from Harley. She jabbed the handle of her mallet into Corvus' back, causing him to stumble forward. I took aim and fired again, blasting Corvus in the chest. He flew backwards and lost his grip on the glaive.

I ran over, picking off a few incoming Outriders, and stood over Corvus. This felt satisfying. I know I've taken bad guys before, but Francis was, like, a D-list villain, and then I didn't even take down Juggernaut. I stopped the zombie invasion of Earth-TRN291, but they were all just generic zombies. I helped stop Shuma-Gorath, but wasn't aware of it happening since Sylvie basically possessed me. The Dalek, while cool to fight, was just a generic Dalek. But this was an Avengers-level supervillain. Someone that Vision killed previously. Actually, no, he killed the Earth-616 version of Corvus. Pretty sure Okoye took down the Earth-TRN734 variant.

"Any last words?" I asked Corvus.

"Thanos…is…supreme," he grunted.

"No he is not, and that's really a waste of your last words. B-bye." I fired the blaster at his head once, then again just to be certain. "You got your boss to thank for me choosing the head."

"What the hell? You wasted ammo there," Harley said.

Three! Two! Stupid! Worth it, flitted through my mind.

"First off," I said, "I'm not sure these things run on ammo in the traditional sense. I mean, have you ever seen a Chitauri stop to reload in the middle of a battle? And also, if there's anything I learned from Zombieland, it's that a little double tap never hurt anyone…except the person or zombie being double tapped."

Up ahead, Thanos spied Black Panther with the Infinity Gauntlet and prepared to throw his blade at him. "C'mon!" I said to Harley.

We ran forth again as Giant-Man wrestled with a Chitauri Leviathan overhead, raining fragments of its armor all around us. Stormbreaker flew across the battlefield to our right, while Drax and Falcon took down a Chitauri Gorilla to our left. "Harley, now!" I yelled. "Blast Thanos with that thing!"

She raised her Chitauri blaster and leveled it with Thanos, the fired. The Purple Prick (that name's sticking) threw his blade at T'Challa, but then was immediately shot in the shoulder by Harley. "Argh!" he grunted, turning to see us rushing towards him.

Black Panther was hit by the blade and dropped the Infinity Gauntlet. The blade boomeranged back to Thanos, but I leapt in the way of it and grabbed it. Harley attacked Thanos again with the blaster, and he swatted her aside into a mound of rubble.

"Well, well, well, we meet at last, Cable," I said. "I guess you are inevitable after all." I stood in front of Thanos, trying to figure out how to properly grip the blade. Damn, this thing was heavy. Not to mention huge. Props to Darth Maul for doing the double-bladed lightsaber.

"I don't even know who you are," Thanos said.

I lunged at him with the blade, clashing it against his armor. Neither object was damaged, so I have to wonder if his armor is adamantium too.

Harley leapt back up and kicked Thanos in the back of the leg, causing him to drop down to one knee. I swung the blade forward again, but Thanos grabbed my arm with his hands and crushed it in his grip. Oh gosh. I'll call that a compound-complex fracture. He threw me aside by the arm, and the blade tumbled to the ground.

Harley hit Thanos in the side of the head with the Chitauri blaster and then went to blast him with it again, but then was frozen in place by red energy. She flew to the side, and then Scarlet Witch landed on the ground in front of Thanos. "You took…everything from me," she said.

"For God's sakes, I don't even know who you are either," Thanos said.

"You will." Scarlet Witch levitated in the air and hurled a pair of large chunks of the Compound's ruins at Thanos. Harley leapt out of the way of the shrapnel just in time, while Thanos took the brunt of the attacks without his blade to deflect them.

Meanwhile, Black Panther chased down the Infinity Gauntlet, but Ebony Maw summoned it to him with a spiral of dirt. But unfortunately for him, that was occupying his full attention. "Harley!" I called. I pointed to Ebony Maw. "That guy up there, shoot at him!"

"Got it," she said. She took aim at Ebony Maw, then fired. At the last second, he saw the shot coming and went to deflect it, but did so too late. The Chitauri blast still burned part of his leg, and he grunted in pain. The Infinity Gauntlet dropped, and I dove under it to catch it.

Power….

Such power….

All in the palm of my hand….

I shouldn't….

Screw it, I can't die.

I put the Infinity Gauntlet on my right hand.

"What the #$&% are you doing?!" Harley and, I'm pretty sure, everyone else nearby yelled. A few of them added, "Who the hell even are you?"

Oh man, I might not be able to die, but as soon as I put on the Gauntlet, it hurt more than basically anything else that's ever happened to me, except when I intentionally blew myself up. The Gauntlet shrunk so it would fit around my hand. Let's see…what would the perfect wish be?

Scarlet Witch levitated Thanos with her powers and started crushing his armor. Harley stood to the side, probably unsure what exactly to do, while I was vaguely aware of Black Panther yelling for me to take off the Gauntlet.

Well, obviously I'd have to disintegrate Thanos and the Black Order…except the blade. And…the Guardians of the Multiverse could use a cooler headquarters than the autocratically chosen Citadel at the End of Time. I wish, I thought, for Thanos and the rest of the Black Order to disintegrate, except for the giant adamantium blade I'm currently holding, and the Sanctuary II and other, smaller ships currently stored in it. And while we're at it, I wish for me and Harley to be teleported onto the bridge of the Sanctuary II.

Snap.

The two of us reappeared in the ship's control area, which was…bigger than I had expected. The giant chamber before us contained dozens of circular control panels scattered throughout it, as well as floor-to-ceiling arrays of holograms and readouts on the walls. And…oh yeah, all the Chitauri and Sakaarans operating them were disintegrating. Come to think of it, why the hell did Thor not encounter any of these Sakaarans on Sakaar itself in Thor: Ragnarok? I mean, you'd think they'd be there if it's their home planet.

And oh yeah, my right arm had been horribly burned by the Infinity Gauntlet.

I tore off the Gauntlet and threw it to the floor, where it landed next to Thanos' blade.

"Oh my God, are you okay?" Harley asked. "I've seen the pictures at the Avengers Museum of what that did to Hulk."

The Avengers Museum…NYC's biggest tourist trap. Supposedly, it was created to give the Avengers some additional income since apparently they aren't paid for being superheroes. That's why being a superhero sucks and being a mercenary is the way to go. So all you kids who wanna be a superhero when you grow up…switch your career path to merc. You'll thank me later.

I tried pulling my arm out of my sleeve to investigate it, but as soon as I tried, a flaring pain shot through my arm. Oh man, how much damage did that Gauntlet do?

"Wade, are you okay?" Harley repeated.

"Ow…," I groaned. "This healing's gonna take a while. I think my arm might repair faster if we just 127 Hours the mother#$%&er."

"I have no idea what that means."

"Get the blade and hack off my arm. The higher the better – I don't know how far up the gamma burning spread."

"Gamma burning?"

"Copyright me. It just sounds cool."

Harley grabbed the blade. "I'm not sure about this…."

"Oh come on – you killed Black Mask with a #$%&ing grenade! This is nothing!"

"Fine." Harley raised the blade, then slashed it down through my arm.

Oh #$&%, that hurt! Even worse than when I cut off my hand to escape from Colossus. Well, at least unlike the last time I lost an entire limb(s), I won't be temporarily handicapped this time.

"Well," I said, jumping up and (it seemed) surprising Harley with how chipper I was for someone who had just lost one of his arms. "Pip Pip (the troll) cheerio. Now that that's done, let's get the Sanctuary II to the Sacred Timeline."

"Okay – wait, what?" Harley did a double take. "Why are we doing that?"

"Well, would you agree that the Guardians need a neater HQ than Sylvie's Citadel?"

"I guess. I mean, it's useful for seeing what's happening across the timelines, like when Shuma-Gorath attacked."

"I heard a 'yes.' And would you agree that, while evil, this is a cooler HQ than the Citadel?"

"Oh, hell yeah."

"And since Thanos won't be needing this anymore, would you agree with us commandeering it to be our…mobile base of operations? To use in conjunction, maybe, with the Citadel; that'd be our stationary base of operations."

"You're kidding."

"I'd better not be. I just hope I can figure out how to work this thing now…maybe I should've kept one Chitauri alive to act as our walking, talking operating manual."

"Well, what're you looking for?"

"Somewhere I can hook up the TemPad to have it return us and the Sanctuary II to our last location – the Sacred Timeline's New Avengers Compound."

"Is there a way to do that?"

"I don't know. Thanos somehow hooked this thing up to a jar of Pym Particles to transport it through the Quantum Realm, so you never know what you might find."

Suddenly, one of the controls started beeping, and I dashed over to it. "Ah #$&%!" I yelled. "Something's entering the atmosphere and flying straight for us – no doubt Captain Marvel. Is there, like, an external speaker system on this ship?"

"Why?"

"To tell Carol we're with the Avengers and don't smash through us!"

"But we're not with the Avengers."

"Yeah, and she doesn't presently need to know that!"

Harley looked over the controls for several seconds. "I don't know, everything here is written in some ass-backwards language!"

"Well then we'd better find somewhere to hook up the TemPad soon, or our new base of operations is gonna be a flaming wreck. And somehow I don't think we're gonna manage to pull off a second Miracle on the Hudson!"

I turned towards the screen and yelled, "SPIDEYPOOL52, IF YOU DON'T GET US OUT OF THIS, SO HELP ME GOD, I'M GONNA #$%&ING-!"

"Wait a minute, is this something here?" Harley asked. "Wade, give me the TemPad. I think I can swap it out for these wires under the steering area and reroute the directional controls through the TemPad."

Anyone who says that threatening someone doesn't get you anywhere is full of bull crap.

I tossed the TemPad to Harley, and she pulled out a few wires under a section of the controls. She jammed the TemPad into something and pushed on it a few times. "Okay, we should be good to go," she said.

"How the hell did you know what to do?" I asked.

"I don't know, it just seemed like something was guiding me where to go, and then I was like, 'Hey, it looks like this might be able to hook up to the TemPad,' and it did."

Well, I know nobody likes deus ex machinas, but…you're welcome. Trust me, Harley and I escaping in the Sanctuary II is gonna be far more interesting to watch than us drowning at the bottom of the Hudson or being interrogated by the Avengers.

I said, "Okay, I'm gonna set the TemPad to send us back to our last destination, and I need you to use your powers of divine guidance to figure your way around those controls, or I'm gonna track down Spideypool52 and stab my sword straight up his-"

"Hmm, this looks like the thrusters," Harley said. "And these two would be the controls…surprised Thanos doesn't steer this thing himself."

"He probably likes delegating stuff." I pushed a few buttons on the TemPad.

"Yeah, but his minions failed him at collecting the Infinity Stones."

"This version of Thanos doesn't know that. I mean, he delegated collecting the Stones to his minions in the first place – wouldn't have done that if he didn't like delegating. Ready when you are."

"Okay, let's #$%&ing do this. Three…two…one!"

Harley activated the Sanctuary II's thrusters, and the entire ship was bathed in orange light before vanishing.

A/N: This side trip is actually going to have a Part 3, but I'll post that later on…just these two for now. Please R&R, and stay tuned for more!