The blinding purple inferno that had swallowed half of Manhattan slowly began to fade.
What followed it was an absolute absence. The world seemed to exhale, the roar of collapsing energy dissolving into a dull, eerie hum.
As the haze lifted, Tony's visor recalibrated, his suit's sensors flickering online through interference.
"Oh… my lord," Ben Grimm muttered with a low and gravelly voice.
Everyone's gaze turned to where the Hollow Purple had passed. What they saw silenced even the battle-hardened.
The skyline was gone, replaced by a smoking crater that stretched for miles.
The very street beneath them had been erased, smooth as glass, as if reality itself had been peeled away.
Ash drifted in the air like snow. The ships that had once filled the sky were vaporized, their wreckage nowhere to be seen. And in the far distance, through clouds of blackened smoke, the massive, half-ruined head of the enemy loomed or what was left of it. The entire left side was missing, cleanly obliterated.
"Son of a—" Clint started, but the words died in his throat.
Captain America took a slow step forward, the shield still in his grip, eyes wide. "What… what the hell was that?"
Tony gave a dry chuckle through the comms. "He's still as non-standard as I expected."
"Sir," JARVIS interrupted, "scanning residual energy from the detonation. Estimated energy output: catastrophic-tier. However… there appear to be no lingering harmful effects. Radiation, destabilization all neutralized."
Tony raised a brow. "Blast scrubbed reality clean and somehow didn't leave any fallout. That's just… perfect logic."
Ben let out a disbelieving laugh. "We actually survived that? Man, I thought we were toast!"
Johnny moved quickly to his sister's side. "Thanks, Sis. We owe you our lives… again."
Sue looked pale, exhaling shakily as she pressed a hand to her temple. "That… wasn't me."
Natasha frowned, eyes narrowing. "What?"
Reed, kneeling beside Sue, nodded grimly. "She's right. Her field collapsed before the explosion hit. Whatever protected us… it wasn't her."
Clint and Rogers exchanged glances. The air between them hung heavy with understanding.
Tony tilted his head, smirk playing at his lips. "If I were to hazard a guess…"
He pointed ahead through the smoke.
"…it'd be him."
Through the thick haze, they saw him.
Gojo was floating effortlessly a few feet above a building, he was descending slowly.
Natasha was just about to speak when her comms crackled alive.
"Romanoff," Fury's voice barked, raw and sharp. "What the hell just happened down there? What did we just witness?"
Natasha hesitated, eyes locked on the descending figure. "Sir, it's—"
Tony cut in before she could speak properly.
"Let me save you the trouble, Nick. You just witnessed a god-tier physics experiment with none of the ethics boards involved. Long story short, the 'kid' just nuked half of Manhattan and didn't leave a scratch on us."
"The kid?" Fury pressed, tone dark. "You mean Gojo?"
And as if summoned by name, Gojo's silhouette flickered from where he was floating and then, in an instant, he was there, standing before them.
Tony blinked once and then tapped the comms off. "Yeah. Speak of the devil."
The group turned fully now. Gojo was floating above them, In his right hand, dangling like a broken doll, was a body.
Ravenous.
The alien enforcer hung limp, his armor was shattered and blackened, his pale-blue flesh scorched and split. Patches of his skin were missing entirely, revealing gleaming metallic sinew beneath. Even Tony's systems struggled to analyze the burns, whatever gojo had done to the alien, it went beyond temperature or plasma.
'Third-degree?' Tony thought grimly. 'No, this is something else. That kind of energy shouldn't even leave a body behind... and considering how dense that alien's skin is it'll take alot to cause those burns'
Reed looked up, his voice barely a whisper. "Jesus…"
Gojo cocked his head slightly, smirking under his breath.
"Oh no," he said dryly, "I'm much weaker than him. But you can call me the Honored One."
The sarcasm laced in his voice was unmistakable but Rogers caught something else.
Gojo's attention wasn't on them.
No, his gaze was fixed past them and locked onto the half-destroyed head looming in the distance.
In his other hand rested Ravenous' weapon the hybrid axe and hammer, its edge cracked and scorched, resting casually on his shoulder like a toy.
Clint noticed it too, turning his head in the same direction.
And then, a flicker of movement with the faintest pulse of energy from the monstrous ruin.
Gojo's eyes narrowed.
'Is that it…?' he thought. 'No… for a realm lord, that shouldn't be enough to kill him. And yet…'
His Six Eyes traced the fading lines of energy, the way Annihilus' body seemed to decay, its heart stilling mid-beat. Slowly, almost reluctantly, Gojo allowed his shoulders to ease.
'So he's dead then… good. I can…'
"Hey," Reed began, helping Sue to her feet. "Were you able to—"
He never finished.
The air cracked.
A pressure unlike anything before slammed into Gojo not physically, but metaphysically, like a thousand invisible fists. The ground exploded outward in a violent shockwave, sending debris and energy flaring in every direction.
Tony tried to throw up a shield as the others braced themselves, the concussive wave rattling even his armor.
And from the smoking crater, a new voice spoke out in an deep, distorted, and utterly alien tone.
"Impressive… attack… for a mortal."
The dust cleared, and there Annihilus was, smaller now, his titanic form condensed to roughly Hulk's size, but no less terrifying.
He flexed a claw, with energy humming between his teeth as he glared at the direction he blasted Gojo.
"Had I delayed my response by mere moments… I would have suffered dire injury."
——————————
Annihilus had changed. His once-mountainous frame was now compact, condensed into something smaller, but infinitely more focused and a weapon forged from rage and for battle.
In his clawed right hand was a rod, the glowing cosmic control rod pulsed violently, veins of gold light crawling up his arm. Each flicker of its light made the air shiver.
Then, a sharp whistling sound split the silence. Something blurred toward him, moving too fast for the eye to follow.
With a single motion, Annihilus swung his rod. The impact cracked the air like thunder. The object hit the ground and skipped across the pavement several times before skidding to a halt in front of him.
He looked down. His eyes narrowed.
"How… disappointing," he rumbled, his voice deep enough to shake dust from broken walls.
"You have failed me, Ravenous."
The mangled form before him barely resembled his general. Ravenous's armor was shredded, his limbs twisted, his blue skin charred and split. The once-proud commander of the Annihilation Wave was nothing more than a husk.
Then —
"Is that so?"
A smooth, sarcastic voice echoed through the haze.
The smoke peeled away, revealing a lone figure walking forward. Gojo with a playful grin tugging at his lips. He was casually twirling Ravenous's hybrid axe in one hand, as if it were a toy rather than a weapon of destruction.
And behind him, standing under a faint shimmer of transparent energy, were the Fantastic Four and Avengers, still alive because Gojo had reacted fast enough to teleport them all away from danger and shielding them from the impact that would've annihilated everything in its path.
Annihilus turned, raising his rod, the eerie green of his eyes locking on Gojo.
"You are… powerful," he said, voice resonating like a thousand voices speaking in harmony. "To destroy my general, to stand before me unharmed, few in this universe could do such a thing."
He extended the cosmic control rod toward Gojo.
"You are wasted among mortals. Join me, boy. Become my new general. I will grant you command over worlds and endless power, infinite knowledge, and dominion over the void itself. The stars shall bend at your word. The creatures of the Negative Zone shall sing your name."
His voice deepened, echoing across the ruined city like the voice of a god offering paradise.
"You will have dominion over existence itself. Walk beside me, and you shall—"
Before he could finish, a sea of fire raged toward him, swallowing half the skyline in a single breath. The flames howled with fury, molten and alive, surging at terrifying temperatures.
Annihilus didn't flinch.
"Hmm. How insolent."
He pointed the cosmic rod forward. It glowed bright yellow and reality itself seemed to warp around its tip. The very firestorm began to twist, folding in on itself, as if space and energy were being rewritten.
But before the flames could vanish entirely, Gojo appeared behind him.
The hybrid axe in his hand blazed with crimson energy. The hammer side pulsed with an overwhelming repulsive force, the air cracking under the pressure.
"Repulsion: amplified."
WHAM!
The strike landed like a god's judgment. The ground erupted, skyscraper foundations cracking like glass. Annihilus was launched into the sky, his body carving a deep trench through the earth before vanishing in the clouds above.
Gojo tilted his head, eyes glowing faintly.
He looked back at the stunned heroes and said with mock solemnity,
"Villains and their monologues…"
He raised a hand and four layers of translucent shields shimmered into place around the heroes, each one thicker than the last.
"You guys stay pretty."
Then his gaze snapped skyward. Lightning coiled around his arm, sparking red and white as he whispered:
"Now then."
In an instant, he vanished and reappeared above Annihilus. The axe crackled with living lightning, the storm gathering around it as it morphed into a massive construct hammer, bigger than a truck. The red hue intensified, energy screaming through the air.
"Red Lightning Amplification: Thunder Reversal."
He swung.
KRACKOOOOOM!
The hammer connected. The explosion was instantaneous, a storm of lightning detonated midair, illuminating the entire city like it was day again.
The shockwave blasted windows across Manhattan.
Back below, Ben shielded his eyes. "Okay, what in the hell just happened!?"
Tony let out a nervous chuckle, his HUD still shaking from the interference. "We almost died, that's what happened."
Reed frowned, eyes scanning the devastation. "How the hell did that alien even survive the last blast? He shouldn't have regenerated that quickly, let alone altered his form."
"Sir," JARVIS's voice cut in, "the weapon Annihilus wields appears to be the source. My readings indicate it amplified and redirected dimensional energy. That may have allowed the entity to compress and survive."
Tony groaned. "And you didn't tell me sooner because…?"
"Because, sir, the subject was moving at hypersonic speeds. I had… limited time to brief you."
Before Tony could reply, the sky boomed.
A deafening clangor echoed as lightning dispersed, revealing Gojo floating midair. Around him, four insectoid warriors were frozen in place, mere millimeters from him, their serrated weapons trembling against an invisible barrier.
From below, Johnny shouted, "What the hell's going on up there!?"
Annihilus' distorted voice echoed across the city again.
"How… are you doing that, mortal? My soldiers, my attacks, why can they not touch you?"
Gojo grinned, tilting his head slightly and decided not to bother explaining the infinity to an entity he was sure could most likely strip it off of him.
"Well… it's kind of a crime to touch without paying first, don't you think?"
There was a flicker of silence which turned a deadly calm.
Then Annihilus slowly raised the glowing cosmic control rod and Gojo's expression shifted. He felt it that creeping, suffocating premonition.
The rod flared to life.
And before Gojo could react, the four insectoids moved. Their weapons pressed an infinitely closer —
—then detonated.
The explosion was titanic.
The air screamed as a blinding white light engulfed the sky. Space folded, twisted, and tore open with the blast. It was a dimensional rupture so violent it cracked through the clouds.
From meters away, Annihilus watched the shockwave spread, eyes gleaming behind his mandibles.
"Hmm," he murmured, watching the distortion ripple through reality.
"Space."
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