This post has the following content warnings:
a fingersnap in any other universe would sound as sweet
Permalink

It doesn't matter who you are. Getting your chest cavity caved in by a giant axe hurts.

Things go foggy for a moment. Thanos only distantly hears the syllables he's trying to rasp out using pulverized lungs. "Y--you... should h... hhhhhhh..."

 

His assailant, the vengeful God of Thunder, says something self-righteous sounding but Thanos doesn't quite register it.

The pain ought to be distracting, but there's only one sensation that really registers in this moment. Not touch, not hearing... not sight or smell or taste either.

It's power.

The sensation of power. Cosmic. Infinite. Building up at his fingertips.

 

The brute with the axe grinds his weapon further into the wound. Thanos finds his voice again.

"You." Deep breath. Eyes up. "You Should Have Aimed For The Head."

This is his moment. This culmination justifies everything; every sacrifice and every so-called atrocity.

 

Everything goes dark as his weary fingers tighten. He fights to stay lucid, to keep his objective framed clearly in his mind's eye. These stones he wields... they are blunt instruments, immense in power but limited in precision--if his focus lapses for a moment, it could all be for naught.

But his focus does not lapse.

 

"SNAP!!"

 

Thanos opens his eyes.

He is not where he was. He is not where he expected to be.

Unfamiliar stars shine down upon him from above.

 

He does not know what planet he's on. He does not know what brought him to it, or why.

He doesn't know much at all about the powers he just unleashed, actually.

All he knows for sure is that, whichever planet he now stands upon, his magnanimous actions have spared it from inevitable ruin.

 

 

 

Total: 11
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

The unfamiliar stars are strangely interrupted by alternating mostly hexagonal patches of utter blackness, with a faintly visible framework forming the edges and forming a dome over where Thanos lies. Closer to the horizon, still interrupted by black hexagons, there is an unfamiliar nighttime landscape, with green plants and rural humanoid habitation (but no inhabitants) visible in the distance.

Three figures stand near the perimeter inside the dome, matching his height and outlined in light.

Permalink

A weariness hangs heavy upon Thanos' titanic frame.

He holds his right fist tight to his chest, applying pressure to the gaping wound there.

Given time, he'll mend. He always has. Even before he was a savior, even before he was a conqueror or a visionary, Thanos had always been a survivor.

 

He distantly registers the presence of the figures, but pays them no more mind than the plantlife or the stars.

 

When he's found a comfortable position, he fixes his gaze on the horizon. Hard to tell where it'll come from, in the black of night, but he'll be waiting...

Sunrise. Thanos slows his breathing and quiets his mind. This Universe owes me a Sunrise.

Permalink

 

Before the sunrise has time to arrive, a voice interrupts his rest.

"Why did you come here and kill?"

Permalink

"I did not mean to come here. In fact, I don't know where here is."

Without even bothering to look for the source of the voice, Thanos answers its queries. He does not, however, divulge anything particularly useful.

"I've killed a lot of different things for a lot of different reasons. You'll need to be more specific."

Permalink

"You arrived in this space, and at the same instant half of the bodies in this space turned to dust."

Permalink

"Please rest assured: I bear no prejudice against this place or its peoples. The particular death you speak of occurred simultaneously across the entire universe, completely at random, playing no favorites to any along the way."

Pause.

"In fact, I had even odds of dying myself. I suppose fate acted in my favor, this time."

Permalink

"We are first concerned not with whether it was fair but that it happened at all."

Permalink

"We have seen many reasons to kill, and often there are other solutions."

Permalink

"It happened. It happened everywhere that it needed to, in a single painless moment. At least, that was my intention."

He resists the urge to glance at his mangled Infinity Gauntlet.

There's something about this place he's been cast into that sets Thanos ill at ease.

Could he have made a mistake? Could his focus have slipped, after all?

No matter. He did the best he could under the circumstances and, if he fell short of his initial goal, he'll just try again and again until he gets it right.

"I traded life for time. Time that, I trust, will bring the better solutions that you allude to."

Permalink

"It seems likely that your intention was not achieved, and you have traveled to stranger spaces than you intended to.

"We could send you back a step on the path you came, help you find your better solution —"

Permalink

"— but we need to know what the problem is to agree to that."

The speaker walks into view; his form is as tall as Thanos's own but otherwise human-shaped; dressed in pocketful vest and pants that suggest some sort of adventurous type, but with no wear or imperfections in his clothes or his body. He is framed in Thanos's line of sight by an oval portal into another landscape, cloudily daylit and mountainous.

This Thread Is On Hiatus
Total: 11
Posts Per Page: