LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 373: Attack on Titan
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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
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Chapter 373: Attack on Titan
26th April 2015, Wakanda
(Wanda Maximoff POV)
She prepared to be ready to fight Thanos, but he was too busy staring around him, "You brought me to Titan. You brought me to my home."
His pride would push him to accept the offer, but his rational mind would argue against it. It was a moment of indecision, and that was all they needed. With a quick nod, the Ancient One seemed to understand what she was getting at, and in a fraction of a second, the world shattered into reflective shards behind him, Thanos seemed to sense it and readjusted reality using his Infinity Stone.
Thanos started to use the Soul Stone, and Wanda started to feel weaker and weaker, like something was leaving her. It was like she was suffocating, even if there was air around. The Ancient One seemed to be having the same issue, but she touched Wanda, and the Scarlet Witch felt the world slow down.
Ah, time dilatation using the Time Stone. Wanda was still in agony, but she used the Space Stone to create a portal that surrounded the three of them, as well as a burst of Gravity to push Thanos away.
The attack seemed to disorient him, since Wanda started to regain her clarity. She slowly stood up, being helped by the Ancient One, who seemed to have recovered spontaneously.
She prepared to be ready to fight Thanos, but he was too busy staring around him, "You brought me to Titan. You brought me to my home."
Wanda looked at the purple skinned alien with an intense look on her face, "It's only fitting that you meet your end at the place where you began."
"No, bringing me here would do nothing more than motivate me. This is where my plan to save the universe began. You know, Titan used to be such a beautiful place. However, slowly, like most planets, it faced its difficulties. Too many mouths to feed, and not enough resources to go around. And when we faced extinction, I offered a solution."
The Mad Titan used the Reality Stone to make an illusion of his home before it died, and the Scarlet Witch stated, "Genocide."
Thanos nodded, "But at random, dispassionate, fair to rich and poor alike. They called me a madman. And what I predicted came to pass." The illusion faded away into the true state of Titan, a ruined barren planet.
"Congratulations, you're a prophet," Wanda snarked.
"No, I'm a survivor."
"Who wants to murder trillions."
The alien warlord looked unperturbed, "With all six Stones, I could simply snap my fingers, and they would all cease to exist. I call that...Mercy."
"And then what?"
"I finally rest...And watch the sun rise on a grateful universe. The hardest choices require the strongest wills. This place is where my dreams began. If you thought that bringing me here would destroy my spirit, then I'm afraid that you have done nothing but remind me of my true purpose."
Wanda snorted, "It was never our intention to break your spirit."
"Then, what was this for?" The Mad Titan asked while frowning.
"A distraction…" The Scarlet Witch answered with a smug smile on her face.
Before the alien warlord could even grasp her words, a giant bolt of lightning appeared out of nowhere, striking the distracted Titan directly, followed by a veritable rain of black swords. Thor and Hela were there.
This was a scenario that they had discussed before. Hela had initially been partnered with doormaker to send her necro swords at their target discreetly. Her presence was a little trump card that would assist anyone having issues, and Wanda had planned that once the fight is purely with Thanos, that Hela reveal herself.
As the dust settled the Mad Titan was revealed to be kneeling slightly. He had a gash on his cheek, but nothing more, "It's been a while since someone had made me bleed. Perhaps this isn't going to be a waste of time, after all."
Thor attempted to send another bolt of lightning, but halfway through, the attack was dissolved into a red mist, because of the Reality Stone. Wanda on the other hand just kept sending small blasts of energy at him to distract him, but he seemed to block them with his gauntlet somehow.
The Sorcerer Supreme knelt and touched the ground, creating a wave of stone that flowed towards the Mad Titan, who attempted to jump over it, only to be brought down by two whips of lightning. Hela leapt into the air, conjuring a dozen swords. However, Thanos closed his fists, and the necro swords were sucked into the gauntlet, as were the ropes of lightning that Thor was maintaining. He opened his gauntlet and a wave of fire spread in front of him, which Wanda diverted into the sky by using the Space Stone.
This took Thanos off-guard enough for Thor to throw his hammer, and this time, it actually broke Thanos' armor when it hit his shoulder. Jasmine sort of forgot to mention how bullshit Thor's new hammer was. Of course, Thanos wouldn't have any of it, and he reeled backwards for just a moment, before his fist shot forward, catching Thor in the face and throwing him away to slam into the side of a mountain.
For the first time in the fight, Wanda decided to use the Power Stone and concentrated for a moment, before sending a giant beam of purple energy at the being in front of her. The alien warlord's eyes seemed to widen for a fraction of a second, and he just raised his palm, seemingly absorbing the blast, and returned with a blast of pure chaos towards a surprised Hela, that was leaping at his back with a giant necro sword in her hand, sending her flying in the opposite direction from her brother.
However, the Sorcerer Supreme decided to involve herself and sent a giant saw of extra-dimensional energy towards Thanos, who tried to turn it using the Reality Stone, only for it to fail. He must be unaccustomed to dimensional attacks then. That's good to know. Still, for the first time since Hela's surprise attack, they had wounded Thanos.
The Mad Titan growled and leapt towards her, only for him to notice that the eye of Agamotto was open, revealing the Time Stone. What the Ancient One had been doing, was revealed quickly, since mid-charge, the Mad Titan was hit with an accelerated Mjolnir, thrown by the God of Thunder, sending him flying back. The Prince of Asgard followed after him with an accelerated Thunder Punch, sending the alien warlord flying back further.
The Sorcerer Supreme yelled, "We can't let him have enough time to use the Soul Stone."
Wanda nodded and teleported herself near the flying Thanos. She created four portals into a loop, hoping to disorient the Mad Titan while giving herself enough time to think of something else. Thanos was stuck in a loop between portals, but it didn't take long for the Mad Titan to yell out, "Enough!"
The four portals broke, but now, Wanda had a plan. It was a terrible plan, but it might still work. Deciding to give herself a little breathing room, she used the Space Stone, enhanced with the Power Stone in her body, and broke the moon nearest to Titan. She then teleported the debris towards her opponent in a veritable meteor shower, and teleported herself back to the rest of her team.
Thor spoke up first, "Do you think he's still alive?"
Hela grunted back, "What do you think? What now?"
The Scarlet Witch grinned, "Now, I do this."
Wanda took a deep breath, used her chaos magic to float all of the meteors, and summoned them towards Thanos, crushing him inside a giant ball of stone, that was slowly lifting up, summoning more and more debris to make the ball bigger. It looked like a giant meteor floating in the sky.
For a fraction of a second, Wanda thought that it might be enough, but of course, Thanos used the Reality Stone to turn the stone into smoke. The witch grinned slightly, as the smoke solidified into spiked shadows that rotated like drills towards the alien. Her opponent snarled as a few of them injured him before he dissolved them into nothing.
Wanda decided to use the Space Stone to alter the gravity on Thanos, pushing him towards the ground. The Mad Titan fell, with a giant impact, creating a veritable cloud of dust around him.
Hela didn't let him catch his breath, as she conjured hundreds of swords towards their opponent. However, their victory was short lived as Thor, for some reason, sent Mjolnir towards the unsuspected back of the Sorcerer Supreme, knocking her out.
He tried to do the same to Wanda, but he was sent flying back with a ball of chaos energy. It was then that she noticed that the Mad Titan was slowly getting up, but most of all, that the Mind Stone, and the Reality Stone were glowing.
Damn, Thor must still be under some kind of illusion or under Thanos' control somehow. Choosing not to risk it further, she opened a portal behind Thor towards Wakanda. They would handle it from there. Emma Frost would be able to tell if the control was temporary or not, and maybe revert it.
They were down two members now. The Ancient One didn't seem to be waking up, but Wanda couldn't risk sending her away for Thanos to return to Earth immediately. Instead, the Scarlet Witch focused and sent her to the mirror dimension. She didn't know if Thanos could access it, especially with the Reality Stone at his disposal, but it was better than leaving her unconscious in the middle of the battlefield. She will be able to leave when she wants to with her sling ring anyway.
However, now, only Hela and Wanda were left, with just a little move. They had been on the offence ever since the fight started, and she didn't expect a counterattack like that.
Speaking of the Mad Titan, he was slowly getting up from their barrage. His armor was missing critical pieces, making it more of a hindrance than providing any protection. The warlord used the Reality Stone to dissolve it, and stumbled up.
He didn't look good. There was blood running all over his face. His breath was ragged, and he was limping, "You are good, I'll admit that. You wiped out my Back Order, and tricked me into underestimating your planetary defenses. But the time for playing is over."
Slowly, he clenched his hand, and all three of the Stones at his disposal started glowing. Wanda didn't know what the Titan's attack was immediately, but it became apparent after a few seconds. Thousands of what seemed like shades started to appear out of nowhere, behind Thanos. It was a veritable army against them all.
"You made a mistake bringing me here. My people will follow me, even in death. Your death is inevitable, I am inevitable. However, you may take heart before you die however knowing that you hurt me more than any other opponent has in a very long time. Goodbye Wanda Maximoff."
The army of shades started to attack, and Wanda had a mad idea. Jasmine had told her about no win scenarios, and this was very much one. The idea is to flip the board and get your enemy to be in the exact same position you are.
For all her power, the Reality Stone really was a good counter to almost everything she had in her arsenal. Wanda had always depended on her reality manipulation, and even with the Power Stone boosting her abilities, her reality manipulation didn't come close to what Thanos possessed when he used the Reality Stone.
So, the answer was simple. Exponential growth. Give him something that's easy to make, but very hard to contain. After all, for all his control over the Reality Stone, he had to actively think about it.
Wanda smiled and used her reality manipulation to transform some of the air around her into an element that Reed Richards had 'theoretically invented'. A few molecules that was all, which burned hotter than anything magical or found in nature outside the interior of a sun, and from there it would spread, those first molecules changing their fellows. It would spread and spread, and it would interact with the rest of the elements of the atmosphere with a very simple result: Fire. A blaze so intense, so hot, it would burn and sear the entire planet's surface clean of all life. It was supposed to be made for a theoretical terraforming scenario, but Richards had thankfully put it aside because he thought it was too dangerous and that he couldn't test it without a lot of needless danger. Jasmine had it catalogued in the 'possible apocalypse events' and had created a magical counter to it, to be deployed the moment something like that appeared.
Unfortunately for Thanos, he didn't have a counter for something like this, and Wanda wanted to rub in her success by adding a bit of chaotic energy into the original molecule, making the fire a veritable inferno of chaos that spread towards the Mad Titan.
That's the thing, for all his detachment, Thanos was seeing his world being destroyed once more, the remnants of his people, even summoned as shades using the Soul Stone, being turned into cinders.
Thanos stared in shock at the massive storm of fire that was shooting his way and tried to use the Reality Stone to stop it. Alas, he couldn't, not really, since it was just multiplying too quickly. Every molecule of air it touched became a target as well. In the end Thanos kept containing the fire, slowly, unable to change it because of the chaotic element inside it, making him require giving up his control of the flames to change its nature.
Thanos decided to dismiss the shades around him and snarled at the devastation to the place that he once called home and focused on undoing as much of it as possible. Wanda, though, held a crimson sword of chaotic energy and stabbed Thanos in the chest with it.
The Mad Titan grunted and then grabbed Wanda's neck. She was choking slightly. The fire had died down and the Mad Titan looked like he was grabbing her necklace, which held the space stone, "You should have gone for the head."
The choking woman snorted, "And you shouldn't get distracted in the middle of a fight."
Thanos didn't have time to say anything as his hand holding the gauntlet was cut off. It was Hela, that was sped up using the Time Stone that the limping Sorcerer Supreme held in her hand. They knew that Hela's Necrosword bypassed the Titan's regeneration, but her swing didn't seem to be physically strong enough to bypass his durability, so accelerating her using the Time Stone seemed obvious.
And now, here he was, the Mad Titan, without his infinity gauntlet. He was kneeling. It was fitting, in a way, that he knelt before the human that destroyed him, a monster that destroyed thousands of civilizations, killing billions, if not trillions.
Wanda simply grabbed his head and used her reality magic to turn the warlord into dust. He didn't have the protection of the Infinity Stones after all.
Thus ended the tale of Thanos, the Mad Titan.
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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
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