Meanwhile, In Sanctuary
It was completely silent in Sanctuary. That alone was odd. What made everything even more odd was the fact that no warriors, Skrull or Kree, were patrolling the corridors. From afar it looked as though the sacred realm of Thanos had been abandoned. Of course it hadn't, but it sure looked that way. Not even Thanos' top assassins were out, their daily training routines broken for the day. The only light came from The Chamber, a circular platform that overlooked the cosmos. Thanos sat in his floating throne and watched the stars, imagining all the species bowing to his supreme reign. All he needed were those dast Infinity Stones!
"Lord Thanos." The greeting came from Thanos' guard. "Your new project is here." Thanos smiled and beckoned the soldier to let the visitors in. Thanos had been expecting them for some time now.
"Hello Ruler of the Cosmos." A deep voice spoke. Thanos rotated his throne around to face the Kree man, and the peculiar girl standing next to him. The man wore a white lab coat and had dark glasses covering his eyes. He wore black gloves and black army boots. "We have completed the requested project." He continued.
Thanos eyed the girl standing next to the man. She stood tall and proud, her dark brown eyes staring up at Thanos. She was decorated in black armor, spikes protruding from her back. Her ebony black hair flowed freely behind her. "Is this your most powerful one?" He asked the scientist.
The scientist fidgeted. "She is one of the better projects we have worked on." Thanos leaned down to glare at the man.
"I asked for your most powerful weapon. Is this it or not?" Thanos watched as the man continued to fidget while the girl stood there, her gaze unwavering. "Answer me!" Thanos boomed. The scientist jumped slightly, the girl still didn't move.
"T-this one i-i-isn't t-the most p-powerful-l." The scientist stuttered. Thanos disapproving gaze made the scientist squirm with discomfort. The girl stood as still as a statue.
"Connect me to your superior." Thanos sat back and the scientist quickly pulled out an Inter-Dimensional Hologram Communicator or IDHC. A hologram appeared of another scientist, this one wearing a shiny name tag across the pocket side of his coat. The tag mentioned his name as Hijinx.
"Thanos." Hijinx greeted him. "What brings about this surprise meeting?"
"Your messenger here tells me that this, thing, that you have brought me is not the most powerful one you posses. Do I need remind you of our deal?" Thanos asked menacingly.
Hijinx remained cool and collected. "I remember the deal Thanos. Give you a warrior capable of much destruction and get protection from our enemy's, fail and be destroyed. We had just one complication though." Hijinx paused and Thanos nodded for him to go on. "It seems that three of our more powerful entities managed to escape. Only four are left."
Thanos thought this news over for a moment before turning to look at the girl that had been brought to him. She seemed like a worthy warrior, but what of the three escapees? "Which ones left?" Thanos asked Hijinx.
"Well they don't really have names." Hijinx explained. "They go by serial numbers, but most workers here had small names for them since no one can remember the numbers anyway.
"Who escaped!" Thanos shouted with impatience.
"Inferno, Tsunami, and Tornado." Hijinx said quickly. "The elements of fire, water, and air." He pointed at the girl in front of Thanos. "This is Titanium, the metal element. The other two in the facility that are completed are Earthquake and Electrical Storm. Their elements are planet and electricity. We are currently working on Black Hole, the space element." Thanos nodded, then turned to the girl.
"If you control every aspect of your element then demonstrate to me your skills." Thanos waved his hand and the stones lining The Chamber opened up. At least 200 soldiers flooded out, surrounding the girl. She stood completely still as her eyes swept over the enemy's surrounding her. Thanos watched her for a couple seconds before motioning to the lead soldier. A shot rang out. Then a metal spike flew through the air and made a kebab of 12 soldiers.
Guns fired as Titanium leaped over fallen bodies, their armor turning into a hovering armada of spikes trailing her. She slashed her way through the soldiers, gaining more weapons as they fell. She waved her hands and the metallic coating of The Chamber rose up to block any incoming shots. She barreled through the crowd of soldiers, their guns and knives proving useless against her metal shields and mind controlled weapons. Another wave of 200 soldiers came out, this time with water Thinking her metallic shields would weaken with rust the soldiers flung the water at her. The water was repelled by the magnetic charge of Titanium and drenched the soldiers, ruining their weapons. A few seconds later they were all dead. A final wave of 200 came out, this time bearing electrically powered swords. One soldier struck Titanium with the sword. A spike impaled him and the electricity from his weapon improved her metal, making it strong again. As the other soldiers tried to attack her, her spikes and shields became more powerful as each blow gave her more strength. Finally all the soldiers were dead, and The chamber was littered with 600 bodies, all dead within minutes.
Thanos looked down at Titanium with a bored gaze. She stood tall and proud once again in the middle of the battlefield, her shields lowered and her spikes attached themselves to her back, arms, and legs. She stood, an armored spiked shell of a girl amid a mass of death, and she smiled a slight twinge of a smile. Thanos liked this girl. "You are a formidable warrior." Thanos said finally to her. "I believe you might make a fine assassin to add to my army."
Hijinx smiled with pleasure. "She shall follow any orders you give her, and execute them to the fullest extent." Thanos nodded.
"What is your weakness girl?" he asked. Hijinx opened his mouth but Thanos held up a hand. "I want her to answer."
Titanium looked Thanos right in the eye, her dark brown pupils staring emotionless at him. "I can fight under any circumstances, against any weapon, versus any number of warriors, but I do not perform as well against fire. My metallic upgrades have allowed me to withstand water, planet, air, and cosmic, even allowing electricity to upgrade me, but fire is the only thing that will weaken me. It will burn away my metal and leave me with no with-stance against the heat and flames." Titanium explained. Thanos nodded as a thought formed in his head.
"So each elemental gets an upgrade from one and a weakness from another, don't they?" Thanos asked Hijinx. Hijinx looked shocked for a minute that Thanos had figured out the labs secret but quickly turned back into his calm, cool form.
"It forces them to become friends and enemy's with each other, they don't get a chance to choose their friends." Hijinx explained. "It causes rifts between each other, and limits them to one person they have to supposedly trust. That trust can then be manipulated, leaving them feeling like their the only one that has their own back. It's an isolation technique that works rather well in making suspicion against each other work in our favor." Hijin smiled. "With no experiment left to turn to they are forced to ally themselves with us, making them formidable warriors and excellent followers.
Thanos laughed. "I like the evilness I'm seeing from you Hijinx." He smirked. "Your warriors will be of great use to me," Thanos paused. "I would also like to have those three escaped elements."
Hijinx's grin faltered for a moment. Titanium shifted uneasily. Thanos had a feeling that there was not good news.
"Well you see," Hijinx began. He stopped then turned to Titanium. "Titanium, explain to Thanos what happened to Inferno, Tsunami, and Tornado."
Titanium nodded in acknowledgment. "They escaped the lab in the spur of the moment." She began. "If they had had time to plan they would have been caught. They escaped off of our planet and disappeared into the night effortlessly. Our ships pursued them, trying to weaken them but they kept going. We finally lost them when they slipped into the Reality Shield. We have been waiting for them to show themselves once more."
Thanos was furious.
"YOU LET THREE PRICELESS EXPERIMENTS ESCAPE INTO THE SACRED SHELTER OF THE ONLY INFINITY STONE I DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO!" Thanos shouted. Hijinx faltered and looked terrified.
"N-n-now w-we t-t-tried t-to keep th-them s-s-safe, b-but they d-d-didn't l-l-listen." Hijinx tried to explain. Thanos was still horribly angry with the scientist, but another thought made itself present.
"How did they even get into the Reality shield? No living thing can get past the high powered defenses." Thanos questioned. He knew that no living being could possibly have a chance of surviving the defenses set up by the Reality Stone. Even he couldn't get in, and he was Thanos! Nothing was more powerful then him!
"Well, they aren't exactly living things." Hijinx began. "They are just entities created in a lab. They are purely constructed of their element. What we did was, after we created the entities we went out and scoped out the Universe to find sentient beings that most matched the constructed DNA of that entity. We captured as many as we had access to, then stole their minds and fused them with their entity. When Inferno, Tsunami, and Tornado escaped we had not yet located where their DNA matches were. That's why they got into the Reality Shield."
Thanos processed this new information. So the girl standing in front of him was a normal being that had been brain washed and infused with a lab created entity made of pure metal? How scientifically entertaining. "How many DNA matches do you need yet to find?" He asked.
"Well, as you can see we have Titanium, Earthquake, Black Hole, and Electric Storm. Inferno, Tsunami, and Tornado picked a great time to escape, we had just found their matches." Hijinx paused. Thanos cleared his throat to urge him on. "Their matches are on Terra, we believe they are going to use the wisdom of Reality to find their matches and keep them safe from us. If we find their matches we can DNA locate them." Hijinx explained.
Thanos growled. "I thought they were brainless creatures?" He questioned.
"These three were the first ones we ever created, a lab technicality gave them small neurons that function somewhat like a brain." Hijinx guiltily explained. Thanos nodded and then dismissed the scientist. He had one of his guards lead Titanium to a room of her own.
So, Thanos thought. Three powerful entities have become friends with the Reality Stone and are headed to Terra to find their DNA matches before the scientist who wants to turn them into living weapons for me does. Thanos sighed. "Could this day get any worse."