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She fell through the air, with Thanos and his throne both blasting her now with his original purple rays of energy. But just before she would have hit the cracked ground below them, Jean recovered. A shield of telekinetic energy appeared all around her, and this time, it was a simple sphere, with none of the reddish energy from her connection to the Phoenix Force. Still it held, as did a minor telekinetic illusion she used for a brief second, ducking to one side and flying toward Thano's right flank in an effort to turn him, she fired a blast of telekinetic energy up at not him, btu the throne, and then Thanos, with a Pheonix Force assisted blast as her connection to that power began to come back.
This time, that blow got through, and Thanos grimaced as he was blasted off his feet, hurled further away from his throne, which in turn let Jean turn her attention to his thrown, Dodging more Necrotic energy attacks coming towards her, Jean lashed out, slamming blow after blow into the throne's shielding, a different one this time, that popped up to protect it.
"AI, raise the shields!"
"Warning: Estimated time to repair Anti-Avatar shielding, 2 minutes, 10 seconds. Repair time further degraded by the use of the Entropy Weapons. Taking evasive action," the throne droned even as it suited action to words. The shields around it had held despite not being programmed to directly counter the Avatar, yet it was clearly a near run thing. "Primary normal energy shields at 60%."
Growling, Thanos got to his feet, still somewhat pleased by how this had gone. A few more strikes from the necrotic energy bolts and the Avatar should be cut off entirely from the source of her power no matter how hard it tries to come back. With that done, I finish her easily. Mere telekinetic power is nothing to the Power Cosmic. "Continue taking evasive action for now. Look to get closer if possible." At range, she still has an advantage.
The battle spiraled out from where it had begun, raining death and destruction in every direction over dozens of miles as both sides now were doing more dodging than anything else, each side trying to get in one good strike at the other rather than trying to wear one another away. The landscape paid for this, but so too did Thanos' throne. Durable though the normal shields were, they started to fade quickly. Worse, the experimental Entropy Weapons were all gone, and had a nasty effect to the throne's frame. As Jean's assaults continued it began to flail at it and Thanos, it was the throne which was getting the worst of it by far, something it told its master in a near endless stream of minor reports.
This got to the point where, After getting his breath knocked out and Jean dodging a return strike, Thanos lost his temper. "Blast you to the ether, cease all damage reports, they are distracting me!" He roared lashing out with Power Cosmic from both his original hand and his synth-skin covered metal hand. He could tell his bracer, with its Entropic Energy weapon, was going to degrade soon. I might have spent far more time on it than on my throne's but it isn't a finished product, and this woman's ability to evade and shift her position within her aura is bothersome.
"Complying."
It might have been Jean's imagination, but for some reason, the throne's heretofore entirely bland AI sounded almost caustic, or annoyed. The kind of annoyed of someone waiting to say 'I told you so' to someone else. Regardless, jean couldn't dwell on it now.
As the throne fell silent at last, Thanos began to press Jean harder, forcing her to fight almost entirely defensively, just waiting to unleash his entropic weapon again. They began to fly over an area still inhabited by living humans. Many were fleeing the destruction had wrought elsewhere, but the original inhabitants were still around. A significant number of Chinese army troopers had retreated into this city, and had begun to fight back, working with the local police even as the civilians ran or hid, having no access to weapons to fight back on their own.
Seeing this, Thanos had a rather amusing idea and issued a new order. "To my throne and the Chitauri still following us. Fire weapons down into the ground with as wide an area as possible. Kill the humans."
"Acknowledged," was the response of his throne, while the Chitauri skimmers and the few Rippers in the air obeyed instantly, flying down to join their fellows in attacking the city.
As Jean was forced to defend a few buildings from attacks from the biomechanical monsters, several panels along the bottom of the throne opened. More than a few of them were fused shut, or their contents had been destroyed in the battle so far and not been repaired yet, the throne having run out of nanites or resources to create more since its energy-to-matter conversion system had been destroyed back in the Himalayas. But there were still a few mini missile launchers and two remaining energy weapons that began to fire.
"Oh fucking hell!" Caught out of position to target the attacking thrown thanks to needing to keep her attacks on the eel-like things away from the locals, Jean snarled as she spread out her telekinetic energy once more, defending more of the city from their strikes. "FUCK!" God damn it, of course this asshole would go for the civilians! And I know I just got fucking played. This is going to hurt.
"You humans, so predictable." Thanos snored, feeling something approaching good humor for a second as he renewing his attacks on Jean. The pulses of Entropy energy crashed into the Avatar, and a moment later, the human female's aura winked out under the effect of his necromantic assault even as his bracer started to come apart as if the highly advanced polymer had become naught but wet tissue paper.
As the female crumpled out of the ground, losing even her original powers for a second, Thanos ordered the throne to ascend into the air, the better to spread the destruction, knowing it would keep the human off balance. "It is almost as if you have no idea of the term sacrifice," he mused as he followed her, the screaming and burning around them as his throne and the Chitauri attacked the city providing a rather apropos backdrop, in his opinion.
"Funny how it's always the people who don't lose anything that talk about other people not knowing about sacrifice!" Jean snarled Thanos' words carrying to her through the carnage as she felt her connection to the Phoenix Force slowly renew itself once more.
But she kept from using it just yet. Better to keep from doing so until I can really hurt him, stick to my own telekinetic power as best I can. Not showing any of the typical fiery edge that her Pheonix powers gave her was hard, but Jean did it as she lashed out toward Thanos. And that damned throne still's up there!
The power of that strike lifted Thanos off his feet, hurling him back through a public toilet set in the center of the park. It didn't hurt though, simply knocked him off his feet as he hadn't set himself properly. "Foolish female, of course I know sacrifice. I sacrificed my entire race, my own family to the glory of my Mistress. I have wondered the galaxy for thousands of years, far longer than you humans have even existed, the only one of my kind. You think I know nothing of sacrifice? That is bad comedy."
Dodging several blasts of Power Cosmic, Jean was then forced to leap up into the air only to have to twirl and duck under still more blasts as Thanos closed, almost on her before she could pull down a building on them both. It was currently empty of living minds, and large enough to shadow the park with room to spare, but she had no doubt it's weight would be nothing to Thanos. Yet Thanos, midair, had not been ready for it, and Jean was. She zipped up through a window on the side of the building coming down and out another up top.
Unfortunately, Thanos simply blasted out a portion of the building with his power, flying straight up before coming down towards Jean. She still lashed with with telekinetic blasts, but Thanos weathered them until one sliced his face open from ear to mouth, causing him to snarl in pain and begin to dodge again as a thin trickle of blood began to drip from the shallow cut. "Clever, hiding one type of attack inside another. Yet immaterial."
"Fuck you, you genocidal psycho!" Jean knew that wasn't exactly original or anything, but she felt it could be allowed at present.
"Really, simple insults?" Growling, Thanos used his Power Cosmic to create another shield to cover his arm, battering aside Jean's attacks as she retreated, keeping the range open. He could track the woman's attacks but couldn't tell which bolts of telekinetic energy were sharp and which weren't. A few cut into his lower legs despite his shield, yet none were deep enough to matter. The female alone did not have enough power, unlike before with the Pheonix Force. Even the hurled car that came next shattered on his outstretched arm with a squeal of tortured metal as parts continued on past him and the rest didn't.
"Okay, you want a better insult, how about this one. You're mental state is highly psychotic due to falling in love with the personification of Entropy, who, by her very nature," Jean paused as she hurled another car, this time backing it up with dozens of TK bolts and a grip towards Thano's thigh, while keeping some of her attention on his floating death dais and the screaming civilians trailing behind her and into hiding. "Is unable to return that love. You either are completely broken in that you don't understand that, or are soOOOGHHH!"
Jean grimaced as Thanos smashed the second car aside and hurled a Power Cosmi blast her way too fast to dodge. It crashed into her, blasting through her telekinetic defense, striking her body with enough force to crack the scale mail-like armor built into her suit. Yet Jean grinned as she finished what she had been saying. "Or you secretly enjoy what you do, large and small, and just use that love as an excuse. Because that's all it is, an excuse."
Now it was Thanos's turn to hurl something her way, a truck that had previously been behind him becoming an overly large bowling ball as he slung it towards Jena overhand. A telekinetic grab held it in place, but Thanos lunged under it, and a Power Cosmic blast, followed rapidly by a punch caught Jean, hurling her backward.
She slammed into and through several buildings, but each of the dozens of impacts barely mattered to the pain of those two strikes to her chest and stomach respectfully. Jean was barely conscious as she rolled to a stop somewhere else within the city. She couldn't see much through her barely open eyes and the agony of something, or maybe multiple something inside her breaking, but it looked like it was dominated by shops and restaurants.
She barely looked up, but when she did, Jean saw the throne hovering above her, firing down into the city still since Thanos hadn't ordered it to stop. Then sound returned to her, the screaming and howling of wounded and scared people, the crunch of two heavy boots on the debris her flight had caused. D, damn it, I, I can't…"
"Warning, this unit has detected unknown energies building up within Target, Phoenix Avatar. Energy signature matches that termed 'magic'." The throne's AI intoned in its normal blank voice. "Conjecture: the energy signature might be a match for one found in the archives of the main unit, designation Sanctuary. Specifically, a energy wave that was observed prior to the Master's sudden removal from the surface of the third planet of this system to the fourth."
W, well, at least I know it can't detect the Pheonix Force coming back to me, Jean thought, wondering if her emergency medical portkey would teleport her away before anything else happened. N, not that I'm in any shape to argue.
Alas for Jean, that wasn't going to happen. "Isolate that energy wave and create a counterwave targeted on the human female," Thanos ordered, even as he reached down toward her.
Jean didn't have a magical bone in her body, but she could still see the sickly yellow ray of power coming down from the throne to encompass the pair. We, well there goes that idea… better make this count then, and hope that my portkey works…"
As Thanos peered down at her, raising Jean to head height, he saw something inside her suit, which had been glowing a light blue, disappear. "Excellent. That worked. And now, Avatar…."
Jean's eyes glowed with fiery red and orange light for a moment and she thrust out, blasting Thanos away from her. Her connection to the Pheonix Force wasn't back to normal, it was in fact flickering on and off like a phone call threatening to drop every millisecond. But Jean had a plan. Not to kill Thanos, no, that seemed impossible given how he'd been tanking her blows, both cutting and blunt force power. No, Jean knew she had to get away, and right now, Thanos wasn't the thing keeping her here, and he also wasn't the one still targeting the city around them.
A concussive blast with all of Jean's current power behind it flashed up from her form, fiery and concentrated into a narrow bolt. Not towards Thanos, but his throne. Before Thanos could shout a warning, the blast of fiery telekinetic energy blasted upward catching Thano's throne platform near the center of the dais's square, searing straight through right through it and destroying most of the throne itself.
Staring upwards from where he had been thrust away, Thanos snarled angrily as his dais fell, nearly breaking in two as it fell. He then looked over at Jean, his eyes flat and dangerous. "Well, that was both smart of you, Avatar, and very, very stupid."
With that, he charged forwards, blasting ahead of him with both hands as Power Cosmic crashed into Jean's aura. Unfortunately for Jean, her portkey was not working. The anti-wavelength thing the shield had done had killed it. the runes burning themselves out in the backlash.
Jean cried out in pain, but the Pheonix Force within her was also slowly starting to heal her injuries, a part of her mind directing her power within to knit herself together. At the same time, she was able to hit back, blasting Thanos back into a building behind her.
Thanos recovered quickly, and another purple-white blast of energy struck Jean as she tried to take to the air sending Jean tumbling back to earth. She struck with such force the small bridge, barely worth the name really, she hit nearly exploded as she hit it, then Jean was falling down into the stream below, sending up a mass of water and steam as she struck.
Spluttering, Jean pushed herself out of the water, blood dripping from a cut on her forehead and from her lips as her internal injuries had been aggravated again. With the water no longer diluting it, the blood quickly blinded Jean in one eye, and she didn't even see Thanos coming until a massive hand grabbing at the back of her neck, lifting her up. A squeeze caused her to groan in pain as her bones ground against one another, and a powerful blow, fit to hurt even someone like the Thing or Thor, crashed into her stomach.
The pain of that on top of her already existing wounds nearly caused her to blackout, and her aura flickered out, dying instantly. "You gave me quite a lot of trouble, Avatar. But now, at least I have one of my prizes," Thanos murmured, his own face showing several shallow cuts from the fight, but nothing serious.
Jean tried to turn her head but couldn't and felt his hand tightening around her neck despite the armor of her suit still being in one piece. Despite feeling about as powerless as a kitten being held by a giant, Jean allowed a blood speckled smile to cross her face, staring straight ahead of her with her one good eye. "At least I fucking destroyed your throne, you bastard…"
"True. That is a setback just as annoying as the loss of so many of my Black Guard." For just a moment something more than dry arrogance was audible in his voice, some hidden pain. Then it was gone and the Power Cosmic seeped out of his other gauntlet as he raise it the back of her neck. "You will be the first to pay for that effrontery, and your demise will garner my Lady's interest in my doings here, on this world. She will look upon me and smile once more!"
"You, you really are we, well, named. Mad Titan…" Jean grunted through tightly clenched teeth. And as she did, a voice resounded in her mind, one she hadn't heard since this invasion began. That voice came down the permanent pathway she had created, not the power of the man on the other end of that link, yet she had maintained it even now, as she had for months on end.
"Jean, hang on, I'm coming!"
It was the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard, and Jean's grin widened even as the Power Cosmic started to grind its way through her armor.
"As you and many others have said before. I will say the same to you as I do them. Love is called the original form of madness by many races for a very good reason," Thanos answered almost philosophically, only to grunt as a telekinetic whip cracked into his false hand, the hand's wrist nearly cracking under the blow.
This forced him to release Jean but fell a few feet before a blow hammered into her side. So strong was Thanos that the thin, already shattered Orichalcum armor that was part of Jean's suit was no help, the impact alone conveying force enough to shatter bones as she cried out and was flung away to imbed into a nearby building.
Thanos flew over to stand above her, watching as Jean coughed up blood trying to push to her feet. "I would prefer to take my time for this, but you are not my only target today."
Jean smirked though, as she looked up at him, her hair lank and matted to her face with blood, her uncovered eye glaring angrily at him. "Heh, the thing about real life targets? They rarely move the way you think. And they can hit back…"
A instant later, there was a booming noise as a blow blasted Thanos off his feet and away from her, and the owner of the voice Jean had heard a few moments ago in her mind arrived in physical form, the owner of the voice moving off with the Mad Titan. "Round two, you prune-skinned cock!"
Behind them, Jean lay there recovering her breath, then she sighed, and pushed herself to her feet, feeling the presence of the Phoenix Force rebuilding her reserves, letting Jean start to repair the damage her body had taken. A few minutes passed, Then Jean, slowly rose into the air. She wasn't one hundred percent, but she was close, and there was still work to do and she reached out telepathically for Emma and Charles, grimacing as the use of her powers caused her brain no small amount of pain. Damn, those blows to the head messed me up almost as bad as the body blows.
Shaking that observation away, Jean spoke to her fellow telepaths even as she began to lash out at the Chitauri attacking the city, her fiery aura slowly but surely rebuilding around her. "Emma, Charles, my coms gear was wrecked. I'm… not up to any large-scale battle right now, but I am still ticking. Just don't expect miracles. Unfortunately, I think that China's gonna need some. Spread the word, we're going to need as much humanitarian aid as we can get, and please tell me the portal's have been taken care of!?"
OOOOOOO
Thanos recovered from being blind-sided quickly, a blow crashing out into his assailant hard enough to separate them, sending the man flying to the side for a moment. Finding his back slamming into and through something, Thanos rolled, grabbing onto the asphalt beneath him, slowing his passage after a few seconds, leaving a series of yards long gouges in the material.
Pushing himself to his feet, Thanos found himself standing in the middle of a road somewhere. Around him a few dozen cars lay where they had been abandoned as he and the avatar had moved over the area, while ahead of him a large bus sat, abandoned. There were few bodies around the place, oddly, but that was the last observation he could make before a blast of supercharged magical lightning crashed into his chest.
The blast staggered Thanos only slightly, on par with or perhaps exceeding most of the blunt style kinetic impacts that the Avatar had used in their battle, and he smiled widely, recognizing the type of attack for what it was, even though the attacker was nowhere to be seen right now. "Finally, Guardian. I have long prepared for this day."
Thanos brought his fake hand up, pulling back the synth-skin there as his body glowed for a moment with the Power Cosmic. Soon, parts of his armor began to emit a counter-energy wave. Not quite a shield, this energy signature, like the one used previously to keep the Avatar from escaping, was specially calibrated to create an anti-energy field to stop any changes created through use of 'magic' from impacting him. Without his throne's power generator it would not last for very long, but it could be used in spurts. And while the computer in my hand is not up to my normal standards, it can run that system for me.
A serious magical attack flew towards him from different angles, looking like an advanced form of the same 'Drill of Light' attack Guardian had used on him in their first clash, but Thanos roared, launching his own blasts in return all around him, small, low powered ones intending to force his opponent into view more than anything else. One struck true, and Guardian appeared, his invisibility spell unable to withstand direct contact with the Power Cosmic, even if the strike itself barely staggered him.
With a target he could see, Thanos released a more powerful blast of energy towards Harry only to frown as the human merely batted it aside, despite being caught on the backfoot. The human did stumble back into the side of a nearby car, which skidded sideways into another one before stopping. Both cars crumpled under the impact, but the human pushed himself out of the side of the car he had struck with ease, looking as if he hadn't even noticed the impact.
For a moment both combatants paused, taking in one another.
Breathing in deeply for the first time in what seemed like forever since Dennis had told him how badly it was going for Jean, Harry was intensely grateful for the added speed and durability his Titan Transformation had given him. He had teleported up to High Note and then flown down from orbit, but even so, if he had been limited to his prior speed, Harry would have been too late to save Jean, a fact that even now was uppermost in his mind.
I knew that there was a limit to how fast I could move without adding wind resistance or general durability enchantments to something, but I never realized how much faster I could go when you removed those considerations from things. It took barely a minute to travel from High Note to Jean's position, and that was with using magic to cancel out the shockwave I created as I flew! And I still barely got here in time.
Harry wasn't complaining on that score, rather, he was very, very aware of how lucky he, and all of earth, had gotten in the fact Harry arrived in time to save his lady-love and the fact that Thanos had seemingly been too arrogant to really lead this invasion as he should have. Or perhaps disinterested would be the better word? The rest of this whole fucking war was just a sideshow to Thanos. It's me and Jean that he was here for. Me for revenge, her to sacrifice her to Lady Death.
If Thanos had led the various assaults, Harry and the Custodes would be mourning a lot more dead of their own and undoubtedly a much higher death toll among the rest of their forces, to say nothing of humanity as a whole. That one fucking strike he sent at Doom, if he'd just spread those kinds of assaults out, Earth would well have lost this war, even if we could have called Strange back or Reed could have found a way to block a attack like Doom did. Meanwhile, in person, only Rogue, Strange and maybe Fenrir and Thor could have held Thanos off as Jean had. Which isn't even considering his damn throne, something Jean thankfully took out of the equation.
As it was, that death toll was going to give people WW2 flashbacks for certain thanks to what happened here in China and the atomics the locals had turned back into their face, along with everything else, but it could have gone far, far worse. And if half of what Jean and Storm reported, if I let Thanos go, he will undoubtedly make it worse very quickly. I can't let him withdraw to somehow bring the Chitauri in through real space somehow, or worse, bring in that 'Sanctuary' that Jean reported his throne was in communication with.
Setting that aside, Harry observed his opponent for a moment. He had seen a flickering aura, sickly yellow to his eyes for a moment, and had heard from a almost-frantic Pinoptes about the various energy attacks and shields Thanos had used during the battle with Jean. Now Thanos stood, a few cuts to his lower legs that had sliced through his greaves, a shallow cut on his cheek, and missing a vambrace. The scars from their previous battle was still visible, and Harry knew at least that one of Thanos's hands wasn't real, but he otherwise looked none the worse for wear.
He's learned, he's prepared for this fight, probably to the point of obsession. This isn't going to be easy, especially when I need to be aware of my environment. I can't go breaking the earth in my attempts to save it. Thanos isn't going to be under any similar limitation. Worse, he probably knows it, going by the trick he pulled on Jean.
Across from him, Thanos also took a moment to observe his opponent, and had to stop his eyes from widening as he became aware of the changes that Guardian had gone through. The human was at least a foot taller than he had been during their previous battle, which Thanos knew was not normal for his race at Guardian's apparent age. His shoulders were wider. Indeed Thanos felt the human was more powerfully built in every direction. The human's eyes were also deeper, a shade of deep forest green now rather than emerald. Those eyes seemed to glow with a dim, yet intense light.
Those were minor changes, merely physical. His forehead scar, which Thanos had seen after tearing his helmet off in their previous battle, had changed, with something seemingly having added to it. On one side of the lightning bolt there was a symbol, a symbol that screamed to Thanos of something dangerous, of something he had seen before, but could not recall, the greenish energy of it reminding him almost of his Entropic energy weapons. The other symbol though was easily recognizable as a feather of a bird, but it gleamed with energy similar to but yet different from the Avatar that Thanos had been fighting moments ago.
Above and beyond those symbols though was the presence of the human. Or should that be former human? Thanos was entirely aware of the effect his presence had on lesser beings, how far above the common being of this galaxy he stood. It had been literal millennia since he had met a creature whose presence was near his own that was not, in some way, bound to the deific system that the galaxy enforced. The feel of such beings, such as the Asgardians he had faced around the main portal, was different enough to be remarked upon.
As Thanos stared at Harry, he realized that Guardian had not ascended, nor was he human. Looking at Guardian, Thanos felt he was standing in the presence of a fellow titan for the first time since he had killed the last of his race in honor of his goddess. "You… Guardian, what have you done…" he growled, fury rising through him.
"What I had to in order to defeat you," Harry answered grimly, then suddenly the magic around his hand disappeared and he charged forward.
Although not caught off guard by this ruse, Thanos' eyes widened at his speed even as another burst of Power Cosmic flashed out from his body, covering the territory around him, letting him spot the real Guardian as he had leaped into the air. His real blow crashed into a spell from Guardian as Thanos roared. "You dare to ape my form!? To somehow evolve yourself into a Titan? That affront will earn you a thousand deaths!"
Blast after blast of magic and Power Cosmic flashed between them, the aftershocks and backsplash shredding the world around them. Cars, asphalt, the trees and anything within a hundred yards simply disappeared as a crater began to develop, spreading quickly. Added to this raw destruction were random magical effects as Power Cosmic disrupted specific spells, sending the magic of them every which way, This created fires, bolts of lightning out of nowhere, and random conjured bits of madness, green splashes, purple air, and transfigured bits of debris, including a pair of strange, horned rabbits, the chaotic energies inherent in all magic released.
Darting forward, Harry engaged, Thanos in close combat, hoping to use physical attacks to hide his real attack. The two began to exchange punches at a rate that none of the Custodes could have kept up with, not even Hela or Steve, their most skilled hand-to-hand combatants. And despite the speed of those blows, they struck with such strength that they created shockwaves which shattered trees, broke the asphalt and blew out windows for miles around, the crater from a moment ago growing with each and every strike.
Grimacing, Harry knew that they were probably now killing people just by the backlash of those hits, but couldn't afford to hold back, knowing that his opponent wouldn't. I need to keep it close, hit his armor with a Portus spell and get it to stick! That was Harry's overriding priority right now: getting Thanos off the earth so he could really let loose without adding further to the death toll of this blasted war.
With each touch Harry tried to get a spell to stick to Thanos, but the Mad Titan's anti-magic field was stopping his magic from taking hold. Although it wasn't as powerful or had as many functions as his throne, Thanos's replaced hand could run that shield easily.
A moment later, Harry's Latinium Malleus fired point blank dissipated, letting Thanos strike Harry with blow that rang his bell despite his Titan transformation. A charm intended to make Thanos weightless simply fizzled out, as did the Portus spell. A Reducto worked when Harry aimed it at the Titan's feet, but didn't do any harm to Thanos, not even rocking the larger being. A lightning spell, in the shape of sword crashed down, but Thanos dodged, lashing out with a blast of Power Cosmic that caused Harry to stagger.
At that point, Thanos pushed forward, battering Harry's hands to either side, landing several strong blows, further battering Harry but not injuring him overmuch. A kick caused him to stumble when it caught Thanos in the leg, followed by the sword of Gryffindor appearing in Harry's hands and flashing up to stab at Thanos's face. Thanos grabbed it before it struck, and a release of the Power Cosmic slagged the weapon in an instant despite it's heavy enchantments. However, this opened up Thanos to a conjured wave of gas, a spell that Harry had come up with when creating one of his Bloody Insane spells.
That gas instantly reacted with the air around them exploding violently with enough force to scorch Thanos's face a bit, and, better, blinded Thanos for just a brief second, which Harry took advantage quickly. Ducking under a wild, unaimed punch from his opponent, Harry created a wave of power and force behind his elbow as he went for a punch, marveling internally at how much easier it was to manipulate raw magic in this form for a second right before the strike hit. The blow caught Thanos on the chin, and there was a monstrous 'BOOOM' like a bomb going off, the already massive crater widening still further as Thanos was smashed off his feet into the air.
Grimacing, Thanos shook his head. That blow was nearly as strong as a blow from Thor's hammer. Worse, though was that when he activated them, only one of his boot repulsors activated. Damn it, I didn't realize that the Avatar's attacks on my lower legs had caused that much damage!
Looking down he saw Guardian coming up after him. Even with only one foot allowing him to move I the air was enough to let Thanos to twist downward into a lunge, zooming down in turn, a blast of energy coming from his synth-skin covered hand. At the same time a bolt of necrotic energy flashed out from his other. It was at least worth a try.
Harry's eyes widened at the sight of that bolt, but he quickly got over his shock at seeing Thanos create something that looked so much like the Arvada Kedavra spell, dodging to the side. This allowed Thanos' other blast to catch him, hurling him through the air but otherwise not doing much damage. Thanos followed up, coming in close and throwing out both energy blasts and punches.
For miles around them people stared up at the strange blasts of energy. Shock gave way to awe, then fear as the blasts continued to grow, to expand in every direction. Even the weather began to change as the Power Cosmic and magic warred in the sky over China.
Both combatants were now using shields at various intervals, blocking or redirecting one another's attacks. Back and forth they went, with Harry using his greater facility with flight to dance around Thanos, trying to get a spell through his shields, but finding that Thanos's hand-computer thing was too quick to trick.
In return, Harry, unused to his new body's dimensions, was making mistakes that Thanos capitalized on. Several times, Harry thought he dodged or lifted himself over an attack only to get hit by it. He was quickly beginning to take a pounding that only his new Titan body allowed him to continue to take.
Even his Crysis suit wasn't able to defend him from the Power Cosmic. The scale armor woven into it had already begun to fail much like Jean's had, the armor based off Balthaak's armor just not strong enough to withstand the strikes. Unlike Harry's Titan form, something he realized, and had to grin at when a blow got through that blew apart a portion of his Crysis suit, scale mail and all, only to leave Harry undamaged.
Thanos could tell none of his strikes were doing much to Guardian. He kept on pumping more and more energy into each strike, uncaring of how his missed attacks were destroying miles upon miles of Earth around them, while Harry, as Thanos knew he would, was forced to hold back for fear of the same.
Not that my perseverance there is doing much, Harry thought bitterly even as another spell chain dissipated on Thanos's shield one spell after another while a dodged blast of Power Cosmic disappeared over the horizon to one side of him. But that shield has to have a limit, and when it falls…
A second later, Harry was pummeled again, the blow so strong it blasted him backward, creating a large enough shockwave that the air seemed to shiver for a moment, the sonic boom of that blow blasting outward. Falling through the air, Harry grimaced as he realized the battle had begun to shift, and worse, towards a city. FUCK. I, I need to change the parameters here.
From behind him, a spell began to form, the magic within Harry acting almost like a third arm, so easy it was to manipulate now. And as he sent several raw magical attacks up at Thanos, the spell created an area of effect teleportation spell, almost like he had created an enchantment to duplicate the spells on the runic doorways. He didn't have time to empower the spell very much, though, as a moment later, the Mad Titan broke through his offensive spellfire, tanking several strikes rather than dodging in order to close faster.
Harry's spells cut off, and the two exchanged still more punches before Harry grabbed at Thanos' arms twisting them around and then pushing hard. For a moment Thanos didn't notice what Harry had done, not having seen the glowing runes behind Harry thanks to the energy released between Harry's spells and the Power Cosmic. Then there was a sudden flash as they crossed the threshold of the teleportation doorway, and then there was darkness as they came out the other side.
Huh, Harry thought for just a second, a flare of self-deprecating humor flashing though his mind. My stomach didn't try to rebel there. That's a positive to this whole Titan transformation I didn't expect. That humor didn't last however, he had a monster to kill. A second later, as Thanos attempted to get his bearings, cursing all the while as his stomach had seemingly not defended him so well, Harry struck out once more.
The two of them were now in deep space, an area near one of the hydrogen scoops over , a place Harry had taken Jean on a date a few weeks back. The area had come to Harry's mind as he had been out there again for a brief safety inspection near the end of the hunt for Loki, and thus he had two memories to draw on while hastily creating a teleportation spell that he had never used before or even imagined was possible. My magic is so much easier to use in its raw form now!
Even as he was blasted away by a spell that tried to cling to him like glue only to fail as his shield activated again, Thanos recovered. The white lights of his eyes gleaming in the dark of space, equal to Harry's own green eyes, he lashed out with several blasts of Power Cosmic even as he activated the chip in his head, reaching out directly to Sanctuary.
For a few seconds as he closed again, the two of them once more began to fight like two brawlers, with Harry's offensive magics dissipating on Thanos' shield. Thanos once more proved the better, more experienced hand to hand fighter, while at the same time, Harry escalated his spellwork once more. After Harry took a blow to the side of his head that sent him blasting away, Harry was able to create one of his Bloody Insane spells, the same one that Harry had used to help end his battle with Galactus.
Antimatter appeared in front of Thanos, right outside his anti-magic shield. And for the first time in their battle, Thanos's mouth opened in a wordless scream of pain as his shield finally failed and he was sent tumbling through space down into Saturn's atmosphere. The antimatter explosion seared away significant chunks of his skin and armor, but didn't do more damage, such was Thanos's titan endurance.
The next second, as Harry charged forward, trying to attack Thanos from behind, a blast of his own caught Harry in the chest, searing Harry's side, hotter and nastier than before as Thanos, began to access the power stored within Sanctuary throughout his fight with Phoenix. That power would swiftly burn through his cybernetic hand, although nowhere near as quickly as it would if he was using an Entropic weapon, but it was worth it.
"GAAAHHH!" Harry howled, his voice torn away from him by the winds of Saturn as he found himself hammered into the planet's upper atmosphere. His durability held, but that blow, a mix of Power Cosmic and pure Pheonix Force energy, tore through his suit's armor despite the orichalcum scales that were a part of it.
Thanos eagerly took the initiative, and a punch sent Harry crashing deeper into the atmosphere of the planet heading downward. But while Harry was hurt, he, like Thanos before him a moment ago, wasn't blinded by the pain. As another blast washed over his form, igniting some of the gases around them, Harry returned fire. A searing beam of power, a mix of antimatter energy barely contained within a tube of magic, slammed into Thanos' leg causing him to gasp in agony.
While the Mad Titan had more natural durability towards spellwork than Galactus had, Harry's transformation had given him far more raw power than he had during their previous meeting,. And while Thanos had upgraded his own resistance with his shield, now that Harry no longer needed to hold back, his raw power was able to overcome it.
The strike nearly burned all the way through his shield and the armor covering Thanos's knee. Although it didn't the sheer impact shattered the bone, hurting Thanos severely for the first time in the fight, pulling another howl of pain from Thanos in turn. "GRAAaaa!"
Pushing through the pain, Thanos reversed course, pulling several small spheres from his belt and tossing them in front of himself. They went off, a mix of insanely high powered flashbangs and gases that Thanos had created to use on Earth. The gases created a chain reaction around them with the oxygen and hydrogen, much like the Bloody Insane spell Harry had used in their first battle on Mars, which Thanos had used as a template.
For just a moment, a storm of lightning, fire, wind and metal rain the size of Earth flared around them, with Harry at its center as Thanos retreated. Unable to retreat in turn fast enough, Harry howled in pain as more of his armor began to fail despite his last moment effort to empower it further with his magic.
By the time Harry got through the torrential horror, Thanos had reached space once more, pushing past what a human would have called the Cassini Division into the A Ring around Saturn. He was now sending beams of ravening purple-white energy down towards Harry, creating new gaps in the rings, so powerful were those beams, destroying all they touched down to the liquid hydrogen level, causing further chain reactions that racked the gas giant and Harry even as he tried to escape.
Meanwhile, out in deep space beyond the solar system, Sanctuary went from a mode that was barely a step above standby to fully powered. It's massively powerful AI began to go to work, calculating a hyperspace jump with the issues of Fortress Mars and all the other gravitic bodies.
Even as Sanctuary jumped, Harry was forced to retreat further into Saturn's atmosphere, speeding up even as the atmosphere around him went from gas to liquid to helium rain and the heat began to be noticeable, Harry finally left the blast wave behind. Now free of the pain and and constant battering, Harry teleported up to the same point the two of them had arrived at just outside Saturn's atmosphere next to the hydrogen scoop.
Thanos had drifted near it during his artillery-like barrage of Harry's previous position, and now before he could realize Harry had teleported out of his impromptu trap, an overpowered punch caught Thanos in the side of his jaw powered by Harry's magic and the speed with which he closed. The blow was so strong that Thanos lost a tooth as he launched him further away from Saturn, while the three spells, two overpowered Shatter Shakers and a Sectumsempra blasted into Thanos's face, causing him to howl in agony even as he was flung away from the planet with so much force it reached an appreciable percentage of light speed.
Harry followed up, zooming after him as fast as his magic could take him, not even noticing Sanctuary appearing in real space behind him for a moment.
The same could not be said for others however. Nor were the other forces in play elsewhere in the star system unaware of Harry and Thanos's clashes beforehand.
OOOOOOO
The eyes of the EDF and Skrull Fleet alike found themselves trained on events occurring within and above the outer atmosphere of one of Sol System's large gas giants. Up to this point, the Skrull Fleet had been somewhat sidelined. The defenders of the system had introduced an entirely new, shuttle-sized combat unit, which hit the Skrull Fleet soon after they began to move in-system, moving in real space so they could avoid being dragged into conflict with the fortress planet the humans had set up. That first strike had been devasting but the next two had been almost as bad, coming in at disparate angles.
Desperation and rage had created innovation, and the Skrull had come up with anti-starfighter doctrine, a name that one of Len'dok's age had thought up, quite quickly. It was based off overlapping firing lanes, swift repositioning and defense in depth to protect their largest ships in a way that was almost quixotic given the size of the enemy vessels they were being protected from. The human starfighters had a horrific two-punch combo of energy beams, one to knock down shields, the other to turn the very matter of the Skrull ships strike into miniature nuclear explosions, almost like antimatter given beam form. That meant that the armor of their targets did not matter at all. Equalizers, the super-dreadnaught class of the Skrull, were suddenly just as vulnerable as their destroyers.
This came in handy when the stinging starfighters attacked again, this time accompanied by the human's capital ships coming in to attempt to attack the fleet from deeper into the gravity well. That short clash had resulted in two of the purloined Kree ships of various sizes being destroyed and the rest forced to retreat, yet that fleet was almost beside the point. Because at the same time they attacked, a starfighter force had come in with them from one direction, while another had come up behind the fleet. And both forces numbered in the thousands. Len'dok had needed to carefully maneuver his fleet in order to not take crippling losses. However, this time, after the starfighters had begun to retreat, he had sent out forces of his battleships in order to blindly bombard the area where the surviving starfighters.
This resulted in a cloud of debris from whatever it was that was allowing the starfighters to cloak themselves or retreat deeper in-system. Even now Len'dok's sensor specialists couldn't tell which, and nothing they did could determine what had been there originally. Sanctuary, Thanos's massive flagship, might have had better luck, but it was not in communications with the Skrull Fleet, having stayed behind where they had first jumped in out in deep space.
Up to this point, Len'dok had lost thirty-five Equalizers, his change in tactics meaning the starfighters couldn't target them as easily. In comparison, he had lost nearly half of his battleships, the starfighters deciding to go for them when they could not get to the superdreadnoughts, killing one hundred and ninety of them. Another hundred cruisers had died to the one hundred and eighty four they'd lost in the initial clash. Their destroyers had been paired down to barely seven hundred from their previously over nine-hundred complement.
The spells hiding the Runic Doorways through which the Ravens deployed were capable of defeating the Skrull sensors entirely. On the other hand, the Runic Doorways did not have much in the way of defense against such overwhelming firepower, which had allowed the Skrull battleships to destroy three of the time-intensive Warp Gates.
Similarly, the emergency portkeys woven into every Raven crewmember's suits routinely pulled three out of every four of them away to be assigned to a new Raven and rejoin the battle. They still took losses, of course, but Admiral Powers and Whitaker were both extremely pleased by how the Ravens had done. Not so much the main fleet. The loss of two destroyers and the damage done to three cruisers had been a harsh lesson, and one the humans could ill afford given the size disparity between them and the attacking Skrull fleet.
Thankfully, there was one area where the humans had an advantage even larger than the Skrull's in terms of capital ships: the superpowered side of things. This quickly became apparent moments after Powers had been forced to retreat from his first probing assault, and even that was simple a mistake in timing. At that point, Steven Strange had created a massive shields behind which the human fleet could sit, inviolate even as they in turn fired back.
It was only the size of the Skrull invasion fleet that allowed them to absorb the losses they had since then, and Fleet Overlord Len'dok knew it. The moment that shield had flared into place, he had tried to keep his distance, pulling back out system.
Black Dwarf might well have objected to that. Indeed, the Black Guard member left to watch the Skrull for Lord Thanos would probably have crushed Len'dok's head like a grape at the show of 'cowardice. But he had previously left fist the flagship, then rapidly thereafter this plane of existence, and Len'dok could barely keep himself from saying good riddance when it happened.
The massive, powerfully built superpowered alien had charged out to do battle with the human's special forces in the form of a young woman (Skrull and human women both looked very alike) with startlingly green hair. But if he had thought that the humans would allow him to challenge just one of them at a time, the moron had been sorely mistaken. He had been quickly slain by the one their intel had labeled, of all things, the Human Torch, and others. Indeed, the fiery-looking human, the one who looked like a star made into a bipedal form, was still causing trouble when the first sign of Lord Thanos battling some other superpowered individuals around one of the gas giants had reached the Skrull's sensors. Only the largest ships in Len'dok's fleet had sufficient shielding to ward him off, and he was continuously making attack runs through the fleet, evading all defensive fire to hit one or two ships at a time even as they retreated, still taking fire from the humans behind their inviolate magical shield.
He was the only one doing so, thankfully. The young woman who seemed to use what his analysts called other dimensional energy and the other young woman with magnetic powers seemed content to act defensively as did the two actual magic users, something Len'dok and every other Skrull in the fleet was thankful for.
Regardless of their willingness to remain on the defensive, however, fear, confusion and simply not having any weapon that could get through the enemy's magic would have normally forced the Skrull fleet to fully withdraw into hyperspace in a planned retreat, if not a disorganized rout. The shield especially, something that had simply appeared out of nothing at a few gestures from one of the human's super-powered individuals, would have caused panic in any less well-trained fleet.
Magic was not a term that most Skrull were mentally prepared to accept. It had been literally millennia since any of their race had been able to use magic, the result of a very nasty civil war well before the Skrull had reached the stars that the Skrull of the modern era barely knew anything about. If not for Thanos warning the Skrull what they might face, even Len'dok would have been unable to keep a lid on the panic and fear that the magic shield and other surprises had caused.
But Len'dok had pulled his fleets back together and then kept it together as they retreated. He felt, and had explained to his officers, that as long as they remained a fleet in being, they represented at least a shadow of threat that was in turn pinning down at least one powerful magic user, and several other super-powered types.
In all honesty, Len'dok knew that was probably not nearly enough to save him from Thanos's displeasure. Yet he could at least hope the mad Titan wouldn't devastate his race further. Under such a master, that was the best he could truly hope for, and had felt so since he had stood in front of Thanos in person for the first time.
Now however, as their scanners continued to tell them more about the colossal exchange of energies occurring in orbit over one of the gas giants, followed by Sanctuary jumping in-system from where it had been hidden in the deep dark, the Fleet Overlord made a decision. From this far out their scanners hadn't been able to tell much about what was happening on Earth (who named their planet dirt, anyway?) especially with the magical defenses fooling long range scanners. Yet they didn't need to tell him much in order to paint a grim picture. It had been more than twenty four hours since his fleet had first arrived in this system, and there had been no sign of the Chitauri's invasion winning the day on the ground. And now without Sanctuary behind him and no sign of 'Lord' Thanos's forces having one on any other front, Len'dok's priorities changed.
"Send a request for ceasefire to the humans. We are but a sideshow here, and I will not let any more Skrull die for nothing," Len'dok ordered. This is no longer about surviving our overlord, it is about this fleet in particular surviving.
"B, but sir," one of his officers hissed as the others all turned to stare at him. Everyone was showing visible signs of the strain of the ongoing battle, and not one of them had not needed to step out and change their shirts or grab a stim at some point. "We, we have our orders. Lord Thanos-"
"I rather think that our lack of progress here is not the only thing that has gone wrong with this invasion, officer. Indeed, I cannot help but believe that even if the Mad Titan wins against whoever he is fighting out there, we will still have lost this campaign." Fleet Overlord Len'dok shook his head with a sneer, finally allowing himself to show his true feelings towards the mad creature who had conquered his race and yet had seemingly failed to plan a single campaign with enough cutouts and backup plans to take a single, prepared planet.
"Thanos believed in his own power, his own intelligence and the importance of his personal goals with all the faith of a fanatic. Yet he did not keep as good an eye on his subordinates or the reality of the war as a whole as he should have, it seems. The battle on Earth is lost, and with that, the Chitauri are almost certainly entirely sidelined."
That could have changed if he had used Sanctuary appropriately, but I was never asked my opinion on that or indeed the overall plan. I would like to call Thanos arrogant, but it's been a little over a year, I think, since he first was here? And the humans have come up with not only enough ground forces to retake the Chitauri beachheads but dozens of super-powered individuals, and those dratted starfighters? There is something truly frightening about how fast the humans seem to grow.
Shaking that thought off, Len'dok covered that moment with a gesture to the tactical screen. "That leaves our fleet as the only appreciable force Thanos can still command. For now, we are best served by looking out for ourselves."
"Sir, Lord Thanos will not take kindly to any kind of ceasefire," the same officer said, not, Len'dok could see, because of any real loyalty to the purple-skinned monster. No, worry and concern shown I the younger Skrull's face as he put his concerns into words. "You, you won't survive his, his displeasure."
"Perhaps not. But if the Mad Titan lives, then I will take my lumps, and he can try to salvage the rest of this campaign. If he is able to overcome his current opponent, and has access to that ship of his, he might be able to," Len'dok admitted. "But if not?" He smiled very slightly. "We might just lose one tyrant titan and gain a… titanically capable ally…"
The groans his officers all released at that pun despite their self-control made the Fleet Overlord smile, although not as much as the sight of the enemy fire slackening off and then stopping entirely as the humans agreed to the ceasefire. SAR teams launched from his fleet as the Ravens, those maddeningly capable ships disappeared again, and Len'Dok and his officers turned their attention back to the battle going on deeper into the system.
OOOOOOO
Sanctuary took barely a millisecond to realize that its master's battle had left the range of its weapons before going after them in real-space. Pushing through the artificial gravity well from the fourth planet had caused it's engines to nearly explode, and they were in no shape to allow for a micro-jump, even if Sanctuary had allowed for the possibility in its jump calculations and had actually come out where it wanted to. The part of its subroutines that Sanctuary devoted to that task said the repair bots would take at least two hours to repair the damage, and until then, Sanctuary could not jump to hyperspace.
That did not matter, much, however. Even in real space, Sanctuary was incredibly fast, using a advanced real-space engine that made even the Shi'ar's version seem slow. Even more importantly, Sanctuary was also extremely well armed, as it showed a moment later. Blasts of energy that only vaguely resembled the weapons used by the Skrull and other, lesser, species fired, filling the area around the target with a halo of fire with enough power to flay a planet, either cutting it apart or removing bits of its surface from existence.. Most of these were thin, cutting beams intended to slice enemy ships into pieces. Others were brute force kinetic beams that resembled Cyclops' eye beams, but far more powerful.
Like most space-going races, Sanctuary had no rocket or missile type weapons. Lock on speed and computer reaction time meant such systems were less than useless. Those it did have were bombs meant to be used against planets. Yet it did have a few, more esoteric weapons systems which it now used against the target: designated Guardian. Two gravitic trap weapons, much like the one the humans had created, reached out from the central section of Sanctuary. A Phase Shift weapon built along its spine also blasted out. Normally when such a weapon struck a target the effect was devasting. Few things and even fewer people could survive being struck by a weapon intended to teleport a portion away into another dimension.
But to the surprise of the AI built into Sanctuary, neither weapon worked. A wave of Guardian's hand seemingly created an anti-gravitic field to cancel out the first weapon. The second seemingly just couldn't grasp anything within Guardian, the beam splashing off him without doing anything, much to the electronic consternation of Sanctuary. Such should have been impossible against a purely mortal, three-dimensional being. It seemed as if Guardian was no longer simply a physical existence. Like Deities that Sanctuary and its Master had dealt with before and the Master himself. With that in mind, Sanctuary cut power to that system, and began to funnel more power to it's other onboard weapons. Brute force would need to suffice.
Grunting under the impacts, Harry barely had time to turn and look behind him before Thanos blasted him again, causing still more of his Crysis suit to explode off him. Even as he tumbled through space in a new direction thanks to that blast, Harry looked up and over his shoulder, blinking in surprise.
The thing behind him was huge. Even though it was well out of range of most of his own spells, it was so big that it looked like a small planetoid, although not in shape. The ship had wings to either side coming out top and bottom flaring out and up or down to merge together in a way that reminded Harry of the aft end of a sci-fi ship that Jean had once shown him, although this one wasn't in green like those stealth combatants were supposed to be. At the front of the main body of the ship was a strange grill-like area that Harry put down to whatever weapons systems were placed there. Above that, there looked like there were two narrow eyes, giving the face of the vessel an almost alive look.
Weapons nacelles lining the wings of the vessel blasted out, followed by more from the grill-like area, which merged into an even more powerful beam, and Harry found himself hissing in pain as they struck. The laser-like energy beams coming from the secondary systems couldn't cut or slice into him even though his armor was more rags than helpful at this point thanks to his Titan body. But that central beam had enough impact to it's attack that he found himself blasted away much like he had done to Thanos earlier, covering even more area than Thanos had before Harry was able to shift enough to get out of the beam's way.
Thanos was not idle during this. He quickly communicated with Sanctuary, and moments later, the same yellowish shield that had worked so well to protect Thanos from spellfire up to this point flickered around Sanctuary, creating a sphere in which no spell would work. The energy to do so caused Sanctuary to cut power to its secondary and tertiary weapons systems, while the main blast, a spinal mounted kinetic dispersal beam flared out again, hammering into Harry for less than a second before cutting out before Harry could get away then resuming. It impacted Harry almost like an Orion Drive would, multiple nukes going off one after another, providing a odd form of propulsion.