-Real World-
"That damn woman!" Proxima Midnight snarled at the screen, watching her future self get torn apart by the Thresher. Her pride was wounded almost as badly as her future body had been destroyed.
Ebony Maw stepped forward, his voice smooth and calculated. "My lord, perhaps we should consider a decapitation strategy? Eliminate the most dangerous individuals before they can coordinate their defense. Strike them one by one, before they realize the danger."
Thanos clenched his left hand slightly, the Infinity Gauntlet gleaming even without its stones. A cold smile played across his lips. "An excellent suggestion, Maw. But not yet. They haven't recognized their vulnerability. We strike when they're at their weakest—when they believe they're safe."
The Mad Titan had been studying the properties of the Reality Stone extensively through the broadcast's revelations, learning from his future self's crude applications. In the process, he'd discovered something fascinating—the stone could do far more than simply transmute matter. It could influence probability, twist circumstances, engineer coincidence and catastrophe.
He could use the gems to ensure events unfolded according to his design. Create problems that would distract the Avengers, keep them too busy to interfere with his collection of the remaining stones.
But first, he needed the Soul Stone. He had to reach Vormir before any complications arose.
Tony and the other Avengers, watching the broadcast, were completely unaware of Thanos's new strategies forming in the shadows.
-Broadcast-
In the Wakandan forest, Captain America and Corvus Glaive remained locked in brutal combat. Steve's enhanced reflexes allowed him to read Corvus's attack patterns, but the alien warrior's speed and power were formidable.
Corvus swung his war-blade in a wide horizontal arc, trying to cut Steve in half. Captain America dropped beneath the strike, felt the blade pass over his head with inches to spare. As Corvus's momentum carried him slightly past, Steve surged upward and slammed his shield into the alien's hand. The war-blade flew from Corvus's grip, tumbling into the underbrush.
Disarmed but undeterred, Corvus Glaive lunged forward and hooked his arm around Steve's neck from behind, applying a chokehold with professional efficiency. He pivoted and threw Steve aside like a wrestler executing a takedown.
Steve hit the ground hard, his vision blurring from lack of oxygen. Before he could recover, Corvus was on him, both hands closing around his throat. Steve grabbed the alien's wrists, his enhanced strength straining against Corvus's grip, but it wasn't enough. Black spots began appearing in his vision. His lungs burned.
This was it. This was how Steve Rogers died—not in battle with Thanos, not in some grand sacrifice, but strangled in a forest by one of his lieutenants—
Corvus Glaive's eyes widened suddenly. He looked down at his chest, confused, and saw the tip of his own war-blade protruding from his sternum. Blue blood welled around the metal.
"Uhh..." The sound escaped his lips as his strength failed.
The blade lifted, raising Corvus off Steve's body. The alien warrior hung suspended for a moment, his weight pulling him down the blade's length, before the weapon was torn free. Corvus Glaive collapsed to the ground, dead before he finished falling.
Behind him stood Vision, his synthetic body sparking from multiple wounds, barely able to stand. He'd crawled across the forest floor, found the war-blade, and struck with the same treacherous precision Corvus had used on him.
Vision dropped to his knees, his power reserves at critical levels.
Steve scrambled over and caught Vision before he could fall completely. "I thought I told you to get out of here!"
Vision looked up at Steve, and despite his injuries, despite the damage to his systems, he smiled. "We don't trade lives, Captain."
Steve couldn't help but smile back, pride mixing with concern for his friend.
-Broadcast-
On Titan, Thanos's meteor bombardment continued. Flaming rocks the size of cars rained down continuously, turning the battlefield into an apocalyptic nightmare.
Spider-Man swung through the chaos with Mantis held securely in his spider-legs, dodging falling debris with his precognitive spider-sense. Each danger registered as a tingle in his mind a split-second before it arrived, allowing him to adjust his trajectory mid-swing.
He passed through a gap in some wreckage, released Mantis into the air, swung underneath her as she sailed overhead, then caught her with a web-line and deposited her on a relatively safe outcropping of metal. She was still unconscious, completely unaware of her acrobatic rescue.
"Stay there! Don't move!" Peter told her, then realized how stupid that sounded since she was unconscious. "Obviously you're not moving, you're asleep, I mean—"
A shadow fell over him. Peter's spider-sense screamed. He looked up to see Drax tumbling through the air, knocked out cold, falling directly toward some jagged debris.
"I got you! I got you!" Peter swung upward, firing web-lines that caught Drax mid-fall. The Guardian was easily three times Peter's weight, but Spider-Man's enhanced strength held as he web-slung both Drax and Star-Lord—who'd also been blasted unconscious—to safe positions.
Peter attached them both to walls with generous amounts of webbing. "Sorry, I can't remember if you told me your names!" he called out, then swung away to help whoever was still conscious.
-Broadcast-
Thanos pushed aside a section of debris that had fallen near him and continued walking toward Doctor Strange with unhurried confidence. The mage was the real threat here—the only one who'd consistently forced Thanos to use the Infinity Stones defensively.
Strange rose into the air, the Cloak of Levitation spreading wide. His hands moved in complex patterns, and twin mandalas of golden light formed. He thrust both palms forward, and beams of pure magical force erupted toward Thanos.
Thanos leaped to the side with surprising agility for someone his size, simultaneously raising the Infinity Gauntlet. The Power Stone flared purple, and he punched toward the incoming magic beams. Purple energy met golden sorcery, the impact shattering a boulder between them into dust and fragments.
Strange didn't give Thanos time to counterattack. His arms spread wide, and the familiar fractured-mirror effect of the Mirror Dimension began forming in front of him—an entire pocket reality where physical laws were merely suggestions.
The purple beam from the Power Stone struck the Mirror Dimension's boundary and simply vanished, absorbed into the alternate space where normal physics didn't apply.
Strange pushed forward with both hands, and the Mirror Dimension rushed outward, its crystalline structure attempting to envelop Thanos and trap him in a realm where Strange held absolute control.
Thanos found himself surrounded by the kaleidoscopic geometry of the Mirror Dimension, reality fracturing into impossible angles. For anyone else, this would have meant defeat—trapped forever in a maze with no exit.
But Thanos had the Power Stone.
He clenched his fist, the stone blazing brilliant purple, and slammed his gauntleted hand into the Mirror Dimension itself. The punch contained enough raw cosmic energy to shatter planets. The Mirror Dimension couldn't withstand it.
The entire pocket reality exploded like glass struck by a hammer. Fragments of broken space scattered in all directions, each shard reflecting infinite realities within its surface.
Thanos wasn't done. The Space Stone flared blue, and he opened his hand. The fragments of the Mirror Dimension—pieces of literal space-time—were drawn back toward the gauntlet, compressed, condensed. They spun faster and faster, drawn into an increasingly tight orbit, until they collapsed into a point of infinite density.
A black hole—small but genuine—formed in Thanos's palm. He hurled it at Strange like a fastball.
Everything in the projectile's path was drawn toward it—debris, dust, the very air itself spiraled into the gravitational well. The black hole left a wake of destruction as it rocketed toward Strange.
Doctor Strange's hands moved in desperate speed, weaving a counterspell. At the last possible instant, just as the black hole was about to tear him apart, Strange's magic took hold. The black hole transformed—converted into thousands of golden butterflies that scattered in all directions, harmless and beautiful.
Even Thanos looked momentarily surprised. He'd never seen anyone transmute a singularity before. This Earth sorcerer was more formidable than he'd anticipated.
Strange floated higher, his hands moving in intricate patterns. The Cloak spread wider, and suddenly his arms multiplied—dozens of them extending from his body in every direction like some divine deity. As he completed the spell, his form split apart. Hundreds of Doctor Strange duplicates poured forth from the original, each one identical, each one real in its own way. They surrounded Thanos completely, filling his vision in every direction.
The Images of Ikonn—one of the most complex spells in the Book of Cagliostro. Each duplicate was real enough to cast magic, real enough to be a threat.
Thanos spun slowly, trying to locate the original Strange among the sea of identical copies. For the first time in the battle, uncertainty crossed his features.
All of Strange's hands—hundreds of them from hundreds of bodies—conjured the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak simultaneously. Magical ropes erupted toward Thanos from every direction, wrapping around his arms, his legs, his torso. Dozens of bands wound around the Infinity Gauntlet itself, forcing their way between his fingers, trying to prevent him from making a fist.
"Now!" all the Stranges shouted in unison.
But Thanos was stronger than Strange had calculated. Even bound by dozens of magical restraints, even with hundreds of Stranges pulling in every direction, Thanos's fingers slowly closed. Muscles bulged. Tendons stood out like steel cables. His hand became a fist.
The Power Stone detonated.
Purple light exploded outward in a spherical wave, instantly incinerating every magical band, every duplicate Strange. The Images of Ikonn were obliterated in a single blast, leaving only the original.
Strange gasped, the backlash from having hundreds of magical constructs destroyed simultaneously hitting him like a physical blow. He stumbled backward through the air, the Cloak struggling to keep him aloft.
Thanos saw his opening. The Space Stone blazed, and Thanos clenched his fist. The distance between himself and Strange simply ceased to exist. Space compressed, folded, bringing the sorcerer directly to Thanos's waiting hand.
His fingers closed around Strange's throat. He lifted the sorcerer off the ground with casual strength, watching him struggle.
"You're full of tricks, wizard," Thanos said, his voice almost respectful. "But you never once used your greatest weapon."
His free hand reached for the Eye of Agamotto hanging from Strange's neck. He grabbed it, yanked it free with enough force to snap the chain, and crushed the ancient artifact in his fist.
The Eye shattered. Green mist leaked out, but no stone emerged from the wreckage.
Thanos's eyes narrowed. "A fake."
He tossed Strange aside contemptuously. The sorcerer's body tumbled through the air and crashed into rubble, sliding to a stop. He didn't move. Unconscious or dead—it didn't matter to Thanos either way.
Thanos raised the gauntlet, the Reality Stone beginning to glow. He would simply rewrite reality until the Time Stone revealed itself—
Something slapped onto the Infinity Gauntlet. Nanomaterial, silvery and liquid, spread across the gauntlet's surface and locked Thanos's fingers in their current position. He couldn't make a fist. Couldn't activate the stones.
Thanos looked up.
Iron Man descended from the sky, his armor battered and scorched from the meteor impact but still functional. His face was set with grim determination as he landed in front of Thanos, repulsors glowing and ready.
-Real World-
Natasha raised an eyebrow, a hint of admiration in her voice. "That armor is tougher than I thought. You actually survived a direct meteor impact."
Tony rolled his eyes but couldn't suppress a slight smile. "Yeah, I know you're disappointed I'm still breathing. But trust me, next time I meet purple Gandhi, I'm not giving him the chance to throw planets at me."
War Machine grinned. "Oh yeah? How you planning to do that?"
Before Tony could respond with what was surely going to be a detailed tactical analysis, Pietro Maximoff interjected with a smirk. "Let me guess—you're going to get thrown around some more, but with style?"
"Hey!" Tony glared at Quicksilver with mock outrage.
Pietro shrugged, completely unbothered by Tony's death stare. "Just calling it like I see it, Stark."
Everyone burst into laughter at the exchange, the tension of watching the brutal battle momentarily broken by the familiar banter.
But their laughter faded as they turned back to the screen, where the final confrontation between Tony Stark and Thanos was about to begin.