Chapter 123: The Final Battle

Chapter 123: The Final Battle

A/N: Thanos has arrived. Time for the epic final showdown between good and evil...

-x-X-x-

“CONTACT! CONTACT!”

The moment they enter the Terran System, alerts begin to sound across the bridge of his flagship. Thanos leans forward on his throne, eyes narrowing and lips curling back.

“Report!”

“Lord Thanos! Multiple reports of weapons platforms all across the system! The fleets are being bombarded from every direction!”

As if to punctuate those words, the Sanctuary II itself suddenly rocks from some sort of attack. Not that it does much. The ship continues moving forward, the internal gravity stabilizing in a handful of seconds. Still...

“Send orders to every fleet, to every ship... full speed ahead. Destroy everything in our path but continue converging on Terra. Nothing else matters.”

“Yes Lord Thanos!”

As they surge forward, burning copious amounts of fuel in their rush for Terra, Thanos rises from his throne and takes up his double-edged blade in one hand while curling the fingers of his other into a fist... a gauntleted fist.

Looking down at the golden Infinity Gauntlet, beautifully crafted out of Uru Metal and barely finished in time for this blitz, the corner of the Titan Warlord’s mouth twitches upwards in an abortive smile. At the moment, the gauntlet is unadorned with the gemstones that it was made to hold... but by the end of the day, he would either have achieved total victory, or he would be dead. There was no middle ground to be had here... Tony Stark, King of Terra, had ensured that.

All this time, Thanos had known there were people moving against him. He’d thought his true enemy was the All-Father, but as it turned out, Odin was little more than a puppet for the man who truly sought to challenge him. At long last, the truth had come out... and all thanks to one of his treacherous daughters returning at long last.

Nebula wasn’t the daughter Thanos would have preferred return to him after years of estrangement, if he were being honest. But he also wasn’t surprised that she was the one to come back. Gamora was always the more certain and self-assured of the two. Nebula, by comparison, had required so much more coddling growing up.

That said, his prodigal daughter had returned at long last... and hadn’t even lasted a day before she’d tried to kill him. He’d assumed that was the plan at first, but a download of her memory banks and some time spent in a torture chamber had revealed that no... his Luphomoid daughter was just as much of a failure as ever. This time though, her failure was to his benefit.

Nebula, as it turned out, had been sent back to him by Tony Stark. Not to try and kill him, but rather to spy on him and transmit his location, and thus the location of the Dwarf King Eitri, back to Stark for a rescue operation.

That alone was rather... quaint and if it were just that, Thanos would have been content to wait and welcome Stark and his allies into a carefully prepared trap with open arms. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just that.

Somehow, the King of Terra had done what Thanos had been striving to do for decades. Tony Stark had the Infinity Stones... and worst of all, he was planning to destroy one of them to stop Thanos from ever accomplishing his goals. The very idea seemed ludicrous, but Nebula’s memories had been quite clear. Stark fully believed that the stones could be used to destroy the stones.

More than that, he was planning to destroy the one stone that would make Thanos’ goal truly impossible. He was planning to destroy the Time Stone. If he was able to do that, then there would be no coming back. Any other stone, one could simply acquire the Time Stone and reverse its sibling’s destruction. But if the Time Stone were to be broken, then there would be no recourse.

This had led Thanos to the here and now. All of his fleets, all of his armies, gathered in mere days and thrown at the Terran System before Stark could complete his ghastly ritual. Stark had forced the Titan Warlord’s hand, pushed him to act somewhat recklessly.

Obviously, it might all be a trap... but that mattered little in the end. He would either win or die... there was no more in between.NewW novels updates at novelhall.com

“My Lord! A portion of the third fleet has just disappeared from view! Our last communications with them are just screams about... fire?!”

Of course, it seemed that Tony Stark had not left his world or star system undefended. It had been a long time since he’d encountered a race this militaristic, let alone a single man. Unable to help it this time, Thanos finds his lips curling upwards... into a smirk.

“A worthy opponent... for one final battle.”

“Sir, what should we do?!”

Snapping his gaze to the one who asked, Thanos snarls.

“Keep moving! We must make it to Terra!”

Nebula’s memories had revealed that the ritual to destroy the Time Stone would not be easy. That it would take days to complete. Hopefully, they’d arrived with time to spare, but every moment was precious. That’s why Thanos wastes no more time on the bridge, instead moving out. As the Sanctuary II reaches the planet of Terra, otherwise known as ‘Earth’ by its denizens, Thanos meets his Black Order in the teleportation room. They, along with all of his armies, are beamed down to the world below mere moments later.

There, arrayed before them, are the defenders of Earth. Millions of soldiers, all armed to the teeth. Terrans alongside Asgardians, and several of Asgard’s protectorate species besides. Thanos is unsurprised as he points his double-edged blade at the opposing army and sends his army forth to destroy them and clear the way for him.

“Sire! I have located Stark!”

“Show me.”

Thanos isn’t surprised that Ebony Maw already found their target. After all, what was the point of positioning an army here if you didn’t have something to protect. On the tablet that his adoptive son hands to him, the Titan Warlord gets his first look at his true enemy, his jaw clenching and his heart racing in excitement and disbelief alike.

There, on the screen, he sees Tony Stark in a suit of armor... the center of which has five glowing gems stuck to it. Red, Blue, Purple, and Yellow on the corners... and Orange in the center.

In front of the armored Terran is a floating green gem, the Time Stone. Power pours off of Tony Stark’s hands as he says something that the tablet can’t pick up, shouting over the outpouring of energy he’s shooting at the Time Stone.

... The ritual is still ongoing. They still have time. Good.

“Listen closely, my Black Order, my chosen children. THAT is our goal. The Stones above all else. We move as one and destroy any enemy who stands in our way. Am I clear?”

“Yes Sire!”

“As you say, Lord Thanos!”

“Your will be done, my Lord.”

There’s a brief pause, before Thanos begins to frown. He looks at the Infinity Gauntlet, covered in the Infinity Stones. He feels the power coursing through his veins. He... snaps his fingers again.

SNAP!

At seeing this, Maw slowly floats forward.

“My Lord? Is something the matter?”

“I... don’t know. It doesn’t... it doesn’t feel like it’s working.”

Turning around, Thanos looks out over the battlefield. If either of the snaps worked, half of the combatants on BOTH sides would be dust by now, but he sees no sign of that anywhere in his field of vision.

“Heh. You know what? Glad I was able to put a smile on your face before the end you big purple thumb. Makes it all the more satisfying that I get to wipe it off.”

Thanos whips around at the sound of Tony Stark’s voice, confident, unrestrained, and smug... and receives a fist to the face for his troubles.

Instead of throwing him back though, the punch is like a wakeup call. Thanos finds himself on his knees, restrained on either side, with Tony Stark looming over him. The Infinity Gauntlet has been removed from Thanos’ right hand, he belatedly realizes, and Stark... Stark is holding it up. Just as the Titan Warlord is realizing he’s been tricked somehow... it begins to dissolve, disintegrating before his eyes.

“No... no! Impossible...”

“Yeah... I guess from your perspective, it does seem like it, doesn’t it?”

Stark’s eyes glow purple as he destroys the Infinity Gauntlet without hesitation. His armor looks different as well... fully intact for one, but also, there’s no spots in the middle of the chestplate to house Infinity Stones like there were before.

It’s then that Thanos realizes the difference in their surroundings as well. The world around them has been dramatically altered. This... this was not Terra. This was no Earth. What...

“I can see you’re a little confused. Did you really think I’d send you your daughter all nice and gift wrapped with an invitation to party at my actual house? I’m not that stupid. Welcome to Proxima b. It’s an Earth-sized planet in the Alpha Centauri System. If you were looking for ‘Terra’, it’s about four and a half light years that way.”

As Stark points off into the distance, Thanos finally begins to struggle against his restraints... but to no avail.

“Bit bright here compared to our Solar System. Three suns instead of one. In fact, a portion of one of your fleets flew into one of those suns early on in this little push of yours. You were too narrowminded to notice though. That was kind of the point, in the end.”

Thanos clenches his jaw when he finally notes Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive all laid out around him, their bodies unmoving, cold and lifeless. They’d been completely fooled. This was a trap, just as he’d feared... and he’d stepped right into it. He refused to accept defeat, however. He refused to give up, to surrender. So long as there was breath in his lungs, he would keep fighting.

As he struggles, Stark peers at him.

“Still raring to go at it, huh? Well, I suppose we should wrap this up. Fortunately for me, you brought your executioner with you.”

What? Thanos pauses for a moment, before the familiar sound of his ship’s transport beam causes him to twist his head and look back behind him. His eyes narrow as Nebula carefully moves up onto the platform, looking around at the one-sided destruction and at the corpses of her siblings.

Finally, her black eyes focus on him... but her words are for Stark.

“You lied to me. Used me.”

Strangely enough, Stark looks guilty over that. Thanos can’t imagine why, the Terran King barely even interacted with Nebula before sending her after him.

“Yeah. Sorry about that, but I needed to get him right where I wanted him. Needed him in a rush and off-balance... so that was where you came in.”

Nebula’s presence, the fact that she’d been beamed down from his flagship... it means they’ve well and truly lost. The battlefield is silent, his armies destroyed. And up in space, his fleets have somehow fallen under Stark’s control. There is nothing and no one left, save one.

“Still, figured I could make it up to you... here.”

Thanos watches as Stark suddenly picks up his own double-edged blade and tosses it to Nebula. His adoptive daughter catches it with both hands, looking it over and then looking down at Thanos’ kneeling form.

“He’s all yours.”

It is not in his nature to beg or plead... not for his own life anyways. However, as Nebula slowly moves to stand in front of him, the last son of Titan does beg. Not for himself, but for the universe.

“Nebula... we are so close. The cause... it cannot end here. Strike me down if you must, but do not give up. Do not give in to complacency. What I did, I did for an ungrateful universe. You are the only one I can entrust to carry on my legacy.”

Lifting his blade up, Nebula puts it under Thanos’ chin, forcing his head upwards to avoid the sharpened cutting edge. Then, she leans in and sneers at him. Abruptly, she spits in his eye, forcing him to close it shut in response.

“Fuck. You.”

Thanos pauses for a moment, before letting out a sigh.

“A disappointment to the end, daughter. If only Gamora-!”

With an enraged scream, Nebula yanks the blade back, cutting off his words by slashing open his throat. Then, she brings the blade back down. It’s the last thing Thanos sees before it splits right through his skull.

-x-X-x-

Plug: An Iron Resolve is FINISHED over on , coming in at 125 chapters long. If you want to sign up to read the rest of the chapters feel free, but know that we're officially in the territory of diminishing returns. If you like what you read, please throw me a Favorite, Read, or even a Review so I can try to get this in front of as many eyes as possible!

A/N: Did I have you guys in the first half? When did you start to realize something was up? :P

One final plot twist, heh. Thanos might have thought he was entitled to some epic final battle... but that was never Tony's plan.

Two chapters remain. Tomorrow, Tony's POV and explanation of his actions here and elsewhere. Day after that, epilogue. Been a hell of a ride!