A group of students in camping clothes emerged from the trees of a forest. Maybe it was a school trip, or perhaps something else. As soon as they crossed the forest's edge, they all took a deep breath and looked around with a mix of relief and nostalgia.
Not even five seconds passed before a caravan of identical black cars arrived to pick up each of the teenagers. In a matter of moments, they were all taken away… except for one.
The only one left was a boy around sixteen years old, with dark brown hair, light blue eyes, and a slim but trained build. Once he was finally alone, he stretched his arms and took a deep breath with his eyes closed.
"Uff, I finally got out after three years."
The heavy sound of something landing behind him broke the silence, but the boy was not surprised.
"You came to pick me up, Tony?" he asked without turning around.
"You wish, kid. I was assigned to give you your first mission", Tony replied.
Harley raised an eyebrow, not believing him. "Seriously? You?"
"What can I say?" Tony shrugged. "The best man for the best student."
"And you said I wouldn't make it."
"No, I said you were useless", Tony corrected him. "SHIELD's resources don't compare to mine. I still don't get why you would put yourself through three years of boring training."
"Experience. I can't spend my whole life in front of a computer. I need real practice."
"Computer? Please. As if Stark Industries still used those old things." Tony clicked his tongue. "You have your suit, right?"
"Always." Harley lifted his wrist and his watch opened, releasing a nano armor that wrapped around his entire body.
"Then let's go. We have to get to Manhattan in less than thirty minutes." After saying that, Tony took off immediately, with Harley following right behind.
After a childish race through the sky and several excited witnesses at the sight of Iron Man, they reached the tower.
Tony's armor retracted and stored itself completely in his chest, revealing him in a black formal suit and dark sunglasses. Harley, for his part, left behind his climbing clothes as they transformed into an elegant suit similar to Tony's.
"Good style, kid", Tony commented as he pressed the elevator button.
As the elevator slowly rose, the conversation did not stop.
"So they're giving me my first mission half an hour after graduating? I can't even see my family first?" Harley asked.
"To be exact, you are not one hundred percent graduated. This is like a final test. If you fail, you get fired."
Harley's eyes widened. "No one told me that."
"Yeah, I think you weren't supposed to know. Do me a favor and don't tell the one eyed man I told you that if you happen to see him. Ah… here we are."
Tony walked toward a device in the center of the room and typed something on a holographic screen.
"Stand inside the circle. Don't move your feet. If something breaks, I'm the one who has to pay for it", he muttered as he watched Harley follow his instructions.
Next to Tony, Harley sighed. "I still can't believe it."
"What? That the new base is in space?"
"No. I can't believe you copied an idea from a comic."
"Copied?" Tony made an offended face. "I bought DC Comics before doing it. So, technically, it's MY idea."
A rainbow light surrounded them. When it faded, the room was completely empty.
They appeared instantly inside a satellite orbiting Earth.
The first thing Harley noticed was that the surroundings were surprisingly empty. Some groups of people walked around, in fact there were dozens, but considering the size of the place, even a hundred would have seemed too few.
"We are very busy people", Tony commented, catching his thoughts.
While Harley explored with his eyes, they reached a wall. There, hanging alone, was the painting.
"Is it…?"
"It's the real one", Tony answered.
"Incredible… to think Laplace's Demon gave it to you."
"Gave? I had to pay Leonardo several million…" Tony muttered, though Harley was no longer listening, completely absorbed by the painting.
Months earlier, Leonardo had revealed his final work. At first, it was disappointing. But that changed when they examined it in detail. In the most literal way possible.
At first glance it was just Earth as seen from space, with perfect fidelity and impressive quality. But when they tried to zoom in, they discovered the incredible part of the image, it never lost quality no matter how close they got.
Only when they zoomed in enough to see individual people did they finally find a limit.
The painting showed every visible corner of the planet, streets, cars, animals, entire cities.
1.5 billion human beings, all represented with absurd detail, a work on a scale bordering on the incomprehensible.
In the past it would have been impossible, even now it was unbelievable.
But then the question arose, if half the planet was visible, why were there only 1.5 billion people?
Then the world remembered something it had almost forgotten after two years of "normal" paintings, Leonardo painted the future.
The revelation was terrifying.
It didn't take long to find the missing people… or at least part of them. In the most remote places on the planet, some people were turning into dust.
When they looked at the painting again, fear consumed them. The dust was everywhere. It had always been there, but no one had understood its meaning.
So they did the logical thing, they zoomed out from the edges, where there were still people, toward the center, where the dust had already been scattered by the wind, moving toward the absolute center of the image, searching for the one responsible.
And there he was.
A purple alien, standing among hundreds of fallen heroes and others still fighting. His body was bleeding, his left arm was missing… but his eyes showed a look of realization and satisfaction as he smiled.
In his right hand he held a golden gauntlet with six glowing stones as he formed what appeared to be the gesture of a snap.
The entire world, whether ordinary people or important politicians, men or women, poor or rich, felt fear.
The heroes, on the other hand, felt hatred, the hatred of someone who sees the enemy they have awaited for years.
Unlike previous times, when the enemy was unknown, this time everyone knew his name.
Thanos.
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+18 chapters in advance on Patreon.
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(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)