202 Arishem's End.

I set Saraswati into a nanite healing tank and sent out drones to Vormir immediately, surveying landscape, alongside a generous helping of my new energy absorbing nanoswarm.

Why am I not going myself?

Because I'm not an idiot.

If they have already gotten the Soul Stone then going there unprepared will just put me in danger!

Hence the precautions. Send drones in for reconnaissance, deal with the minor interlopers with my nano swarm and remotely shoot the Celestial out of the sky.

But first I need to know what's going on, there on Vormir.

My drones and satellites got into position quickly enough and a live feed appeared to me on my contacts.

A massive red armored form loomed over the planet, it's unfeeling, godlike gaze transfized on me.

Arishem The Judge!

His eyes glowed and space warped around him before rippling out.

Instantly, my satellites shook, and crumbled to dust and I scrambled to hide my drones.

Thankfully in that one moment that my satellites had been there, they had mapped it out.

The whole planet as it was now.

I zoomed across the surface of the planet, searching for two sites.

The altar of the Soul Stone and the Salt Flats where it rebirths the wielder of the stone.

The Eternals were almost upon the altar now, mere miles from it.

Oh no you don't!

Immediately, I shot down a dimensional anchor onto the altar and scrambled it's settings, sending the altar to another dimension far away from the MCU.

I could see the shock on the Eternals' faces as they arrived upon the mountain's location and saw it disappear.

Hah! Take that!

Then it was as simple as one, two, three.

I dropped down a forcefield generator into the middle of the Salt Flats, covering them completely. Now I don't ahve to worry about the Soul Stone being stolen from me once I get reborn in the Salt Flat's many pools after getting it.

Next, I began to fiddle with my own forcefield clip, upgrading it for the coming battle to make sure it is able to block attacks targetting the soul, just in case the Stone is still stolen from me of if Arishem or the others manage to get it either way.

Must be prepared for all eventualities.

By the same logic, I pulled out a human father and daughter I had kidnapped earlier this month and dumped them into two shuttles ready to launch into the altar.

I had been slowly tormenting them,

making them ready for a sacrifice.

They each had a button in their pods.

It would shoot them into the altar and kill them if they pressed it.

A willing sacrifice.

The premise? Simple.

Either you willingly sacrifice yourself for your daughter or I kill her.

Of course, this was just the last resort if my other ones didn't pan out. But it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

The reason it wasn't my first plan?

Because of the nature of the Soul Stone mechanism. The sacrificial lamb acted like a sort of guide or user interface for the wielder of the Soul Stone, seeing how Thanos saw Gamora guiding him when he used it.

And if that's the case they might have some influence on the Stone.

They might even be able to mess with my actions if only slightly.

But slightly is still too much.

I can't allow a wildcard like that.

Now I can of course try to use one of the artificial souls to get it but I don't know if that will work either.

Hence my first choice was Pietro.

The measured and reasonable option. Someone loyal to me.

Now to set him on the path.

I connected to the comms and announced.

"Pietro, Wanda, everyone. Emergency meeting. Now. In the living room." I called out opening portals in their rooms.

I finished upgrading my own forcefield and made for the living room.

No time to waste now.

I appeared in the room and slid into my seat, pulling up a holoscreen with Thanos's face on it.

"I'm sure you all know who this is? Thanos, The Mad Titan. I have already briefed you on him before.

I once told you his goal was to wipe out half of all life in he universe in sone twisted Malthusian scheme to balance it all. Save life from itself as he likes to call it.

And trust me, anyone who wants to save you from yourself is up to no good.

To achieve his goals, he plans to use powerful gems called the infinity stones that can manipulate reality on a cosmic scale. The same ones I'm trying to collect to revive my own wife. I have three of them with me.

The Time, Space and Mind Stones respectively.

Thanos, has one. The Power Stone, which manipulates the fundamental forces pf the universe.

It is the ultimate defence and offense rolled into one.

As we speak, he is on his way to get the Soul Stone." I panned my gaze across the room, watching the nervous faces as the realisation hit them.

"I don't think I need to tell you why that's a bad idea. If he gets his hands on the Soul Stone, he won't even need all the stones. Just the Power Stone and the Soul Stone alone will give him the ability to achieve his goals. And that means death on a scale hitherto unforeseen. We're not talking billions here. Not just humans.

Aliens, animals, fish and birds, trees and fungi. Every form of life. Half of it, gone. Quadrillions, Quintillions, Septillions dead.

And if he gets his hands on all six? Armageddon. End of days.

He can and will instantly wipe out half of all life, like this." I snapped my fingers for effect.

"Now usually, it wouldn't matter to me. The ship will keep us safe from his power and what happens outside is no business of ours. You know that already. I am not a hero. I am not a villain. I am just a researcher. A very selfish, very powerful researcher. And the same goes for you all while you're here.

But now, he has hurt one of us." I pulled up Saraswati, floating damaged in a healing tank.

"Now, it's personal. And while I don't give two shits about saving people, I won't just stand by and let him achieve his horrifying goals without a word.

As for why I am telling you this?

Because I intend to go and fight him. Stop him. Once and for all. And while I'm doing that, I need you to retrieve the Soul Stone.

And kids, I need you to promise me you'll stay here. That you won't follow us to Vormir." I said with affectation, hamming up my performance to get the best effect.

"This is.... dangerous. So when I.....when we leave, " I gestured at Wanda and Pietro, "I will shut down all portal devices from the ship. And I know you have the power to reverse my decision with your powers. Especially Saraswati, once she recovers in a few minutes.

So I want you to promise me, you will stay here, on the ship." I said, levelling a stern but loving gaze at the kids.

Of course, I wasn't worried.

The Vaykunth Lok System was online and at this point nothing can kill me or the kids anywhere in the multiverse.

But to force Pietro to sacrifice himself, I need to play up the heroic bit.

Make a show of how much the cost could be, the desperation of the fight.

"Wanda, Pietro, this is your first mission. But knowing how dangerous this will be, I understand if you want to sit it out. Because today, you might have to fight a Celestial, a planet sized cosmic creature that is as close to a god as you get around here

I looked at Ace and deactivated my anti mind reading implant sending a message to her via telepathy.

A script.

"Papa, please tell me you won't die! You don't have to go! We'll be safe here!" Ace said, taking the hint.

Smart girl.

Why the drama?

Simple.

I couldn't have an older, more powerful Wanda look back later with her magic and find my treachery leading her brother to his death.

When, and not if, she looks back, because she most definitely will, I need it to look like a 100 percent his decision.

So here we are.

Playing Kabuki.

"If I don't, the world ends. Besides, I was going to have to fight him anyways. And that, saving the universe, that's a cause worth dying for." I said, planting the key terms for the ideas that I had sowed in the fertile field that was Pietro's mind weeks prior.

Now, it's time to reap the harvest.

I looked over at the siblings and asked.

"Are you with me?"

Wanda looked worriedly at Pietro, who was pimped up about it and sighed.

"Yes. We are." She said.

I could see Arishem trying to recreate the altar on Vormir. He can't be allowed to do that.

To have that Stone.

And he won't. If he doesn't have a sacrifice.

I put on my nekomimi headphones and switched to Ready To Die by Andrew W.K. as the ship's artillery warmed up for a planetary bombardment.

If I can't have the Soul Stone, you certainly won't!

Portals colored the sky above Vormir neon green and a laser bombardment seared the planet's surface.

The formerly yellow and blue planet shook, as the atmosphere burned bright red with flames, the top layer literally burning off.

The surface of the planet itself turned instantly to a giant pool of hot, bubbling, glowing white lava.

Then came the disintegration barrage, and for a moment the whole planet burned a blinding white and purple, as the outer crust of the planet disintegrated to nothing.

Now exposed to the cold darkness of space, and the sudden and very destablizing sublimation of it's top layer, it flash froze, turning the planet into a black charred and cold husk.

The only two zones excluded from the destruction were the ones I had secured earlier.

I looked down at the surface and saw on more exclusion zone. A purple glowing one, with the Power Stone's energy covering it.

Thanos!

And within the bubble he had made, the Eternals.

I sighed and shook my head.

Poor sods.

They could have chosen the peaceful death from the disintegration beams earlier. But now?

I began to target the peanut gallery.

Godslayer bolt after Godslayer bolt slammed into the Eternals, tearing them apart, blood and guts and innards splattered the cold hard igneous rock layer of the flash frozen mantle, decimating the new surface of Vormir, killing all the Eternals bar Thanos and Ikarus, who both survived thanks to their sheer power and in Ikarus's case his unbelievably fast reflexes. Motherfucker dodged my Godslayer bolts like he was at a ballet recital. In mid air.

I couldn't hear what they were saying but the sheer horror on their faces betrayed their thoughts.

I grinned from ear to ear, evilly.

Now they know their place.

As the insects they are.

I could make out the words surrender and negotiate from Ikarus's lips.

Too late for that though.

I connected to my nano swarm on the surface and gave them an order.

"Consume."

They began to eat away at everything on the planet, ravenously reproducing more and more until even Ikarus had to fly out into space to get away from them. To no avail. He had already been infected.

Ikarus flew farther and farther into Space, trying to make it to the Sun.

A futile attempt.

My new nano swarm was nigh impervious. And it literally ate energy!

My swarm ate through him like consumption through a victorian lord, acid through iron and his body collapsed into dust, which was further consumed by the swarm till there was nothing left of him.

And then came Arishem.

I targetted him and smiled.

Bang!

The bolts shot at him, zipping through the exosphere, tearing up a blazing trail in the sky as it hit him square in the chest.

Or came close.

Suddenly, space warped around the impact point and it seemed as if time itself was turning back, and causality reversed as my bolts collapsed and disintegrated, flaking away into cosmic dust.

Wiped from existence.

Well, damn.

Reality Warpers are goddamn broken.

OP please nerf!

Or so I would say.

Fortunately, I had just come into some prime quality reality warper flesh.

In the docking bay, I guided my droids to attach a miniaturized reality anchor array to a godslayer bolt and charged up my portal projector.

In the auxiliary compartments, a portal opened and a xanthenite crystal slid into the Causal Enforcer, my own version of the Gae Bolg from Fate.

After I used it against Scion back in Worm with a crude modification to my portal gun, ending up with a broken xanthenite crystal and a faulty portal gun, I decided to improve on the idea and ended up creating a permanent attachment to my ship's portal gun.

A device that could make my portals a causal certainty.

Any thing going through the portals would get to it's destination, no matter what. You couldn't avoid it. You couldn't counter it. It would hit you. It was literally inevitable.

The unavoidable, unstoppable, inviolable portal.

And the effect applied to everything that passed through it.

Destabilizing the miniature array of reality anchors, I set it to blow on impact and loaded up the special Godslayer bolt into the cannon.

One of my drones made it close to the colossal cosmic god and right in his face, projecting my face on a holoscreen.

"Hasta la vista baby!"

Boom!

My ship shook as the most powerful Godslayer bolt launched from it.

Space warped around the bolt, reality thinned out as the laws of physics governing my technology shattered, twisting the cannon like a gnarled root as it shot out.

A massive wave of power rippled across the ship and it's systems flickered wildly at the sheer power of the bolt.

It was made of different stuff!

Hehehhehehehahhahha!

"Now die!"

The bolt disappeared into a Causally Enforced Portal, a neon green one with a purple black lining, and shattered space around it.

Arishem's face twisted in a scowl and his eyes lit up with surprise and fear as it raised it's hand with urgency.

A black hole formed at his hand and light and time bent around it's event horizon, space shimmering at it's edges, curved and curled.

Any other creature in the universe, and other weapon, and it might have worked.

Saved him.

But not this.

It was too late!

The bolt emerged from the portal, glowing purple and black, strands of power coiling around it, zipping through like an eldritch tyrant from realms beyond mortal and immortal ken.

The black hole at his finger tips cracked and collapsed, dissipating into nothing and Arishem's finger began to break apart at their seams, unraveling like he was in an LSD fueled fever dream.

Except this one was real!

This is absolute fucking power!

The planet began to crumble at it's edges and the Sun of the system flickered, warping into a dual helix like hourglass of flame and heavenly light.

Vormir's moon crumbled away like a biscuit in hot milk and the other planets began to be shunted away out of orbit as space thrashed around in the solar system like a dying cow.

And finally, it crashed, right into Arishem who stood there frozen, and for the first time in his long life afraid, and speechless.

Then there was nothing.

In an instant, it all disappeared, as the reality anchors blew up, wiping Arishem from existence.

A wave of hume particles, the ones that make up reality and keep it stable rippled put from the impact as the universe itself began to implement a corrective measure against the travesty and the natural order of existence that had just occured.

From nowhere, the dead corpse of Arishem appeared, shattered to pieces, floating aimlessly above Vormir, or what was left of it, and the solar system returned to normal.

Or as normal as it could. The planets were still out of orbit the sun still flickered like a broken lightbulb for a good eight seconds before it began to settle back into form and Vormir was cracked into seven pieces, it's planetary core leaking out like mercury from a snapped thermometer.

And all that was left now was him.

Thanos.

Bruised and battered, his skin charred, chapped and cracked, bleeding all over.

Now then. Time to clean up the trash once and for all. And kill two birds with one stone. Or in this case, snatch two stones with one bolt.

With a thought, the altar of the Soul Stone returned from the alternate dimension, on the broken planet's surface.

I looked at Wanda and Pietro, and gestured them over as I opened up a portal to Vormir.

"Let's go."

____________________

Sorry for the lateness my dudes!

Here's an extra long chapter to make up for it!

Next extra chapter at 400 powerstones which I see has already been achieved.

Here we go again!

Off to write another one!

Still, do donate your powerstones!

Let's get to top 1 in the ranking broskis!

Journey to the top baby!

Thanks for reading.

See you in a bit with another chappy!

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