With his plan already defined, Thanos once again headed toward his most powerful weapon.
The sound of the cannon charging energy to its limit and then using the last of its strength to fire had always irritated him in previous rounds. He had heard it too many times, to the point of hating it, thinking about how ironic it was to depend so heavily on his greatest weapon and yet have it prove useless.
But this time, the sound made him smile sinisterly, a smile the cold Titan of the past would never have shown.
He did not care. He was excited to finally see a path to success in front of him.
The familiar explosion echoed. The beam was fired, the cannon destroyed itself, and just a few seconds later, Earth's shield collapsed along with it.
Following Thanos' orders, all the ships aimed their weapons at the Moon, concentrating their energy into a massive beam that was fired directly at the lunar surface.
But before it could reach its target, Thanos once again encountered failure.
KRA-KOOM.
He heard a scream.
A scream in space, where sound should not exist.
The noise came directly from the Moon and was so intense that not only his entire crew, but even the Mad Titan himself, had to cover their ears in pain. Most of his soldiers collapsed to the floor, writhing, blood flowing from their ears.
The sound was visible in space. It was impossible to ignore how the vacuum rippled until the distortion reached the attack launched by Thanos' fleet. The beam vanished instantly, having no chance at all against the sonic assault.
Thanos' expression darkened even further.
Not only had another unknown and powerful force emerged on the Moon, but the overall situation was disastrous.
They had not yet reached Earth, but they no longer had enough energy, and the cannon enhanced by the Power Stone had been destroyed.
The situation was almost identical to the first round, when he still had confidence and told the Avengers that it did not matter how long it took, that he would win, that he would repeat the process over and over until he succeeded.
However, after hundreds of repetitions, not only had he failed to win, he had never even come close. He never saw the other stones. He never found Leonardo.
And so, Thanos repeated it once again.
This time, the first thing he did was give an order to a subordinate. The subordinate returned seconds later with a book and immediately withdrew, leaving Thanos alone in the room.
Thanos opened the book and recited the strange words written on its pages. A voice echoed in his mind.
"What do you want, Thanos? I already told you I would not help you," Dormammu's voice sounded.
"Wait? What is this? Is the time of the Dark Dimension and the time here desynchronized?" Dormammu realized, falling silent for a moment before laughing.
"HA HA HA HA HA. I see now, Thanos. You copied the tactic of the current Sorcerer Supreme, resetting and fighting again and again.
And even so you lost, right? That is why you want my help now."
Thanos ignored Dormammu's mockery before replying.
"I need your help."
"You know I cannot go to Earth."
"I already scanned the entire Earth with the Soul Stone. There is no trace of the former Sorcerer Supreme. Either she is dead or she is not on the planet. In any case, she cannot harm you."
"Are you serious?" Dormammu asked, confused.
After thinking for a second, he replied,
"I can help you, but…"
Thanos waited patiently for him to state his conditions.
"I want the Infinity Stones."
"Impossible," Thanos replied. He had always intended to destroy the stones after fulfilling his purpose, so that no one could undo what he did.
"Even if the old woman is dead, the dark energy she borrowed was not returned. If she truly died, it was most likely used for something powerful, probably some countermeasure against me. Even if I do not believe it can truly defeat me, I will still have to use part of my power. Add to that the cost of opening the dimensional gate and the energy required to destroy the shields of Earth's sanctums, and I will expend an enormous amount of energy.
The only reason I am even willing to consider trying is because of the power of the Infinity Stones."
Thanos remained silent. Only after thinking it over for ten minutes did he finally nod, on the condition that Dormammu could not undo his wish and that after using the stones, he would destroy them.
Dormammu, of course, agreed, and they sealed the deal.
Making a deal with an extradimensional demon is not as simple as a verbal promise. If Thanos failed to comply, he would become nutrients for Dormammu's Dark Dimension, regardless of his power.
Thus, in space before Earth, an enormous rift opened, visible from half the planet, incredibly vast.
Yet despite its size, through that colossal rift only a mouth could be seen, making it clear how gigantic the being behind it must be.
The mouth spoke at that moment, and its voice reached every corner of Earth.
"Come on, countermeasure, I can feel it. You are a person. Did the old woman give my energy to someone to fight me? How foolish."
Just as Dormammu had said, his energy was in the hands of a single person.
A cloak suddenly appeared in front of the rift, so dark that it stood out even in space for being blacker than the void itself. From within it emerged two people.
The bearer of the cloak and a woman dressed in white at his side.
The man looked at Dormammu in fear for an instant, but calmed when the woman took his hand.
"You can do it," she said, and he nodded.
Without saying anything else, the man attacked. The cloak expanded, growing until it was comparable to the rift from which Dormammu had emerged. It stretched so far that it seemed endless, until a white energy appeared around it, as if defining the boundaries it needed.
Guided by the white light, the cloak completely enveloped the rift and then vanished, swallowed by itself.
Cloak and Dagger disappeared from the place after completing their mission, paying no attention to anything else, and the rift from which Dormammu had emerged was closed.
On his ship, Thanos was furious.
"Did they defeat you?"
"They did not defeat me, they only closed the rift through which I entered," Dormammu corrected.
"And how easy is it to do that?"
"Difficult, extremely difficult.
But that boy is not normal. I felt it. He is anchored to an inherently dark force, so unfathomable that it was capable of devouring even my dark energy and using it as fuel for his own power," Dormammu explained.
Thanos sighed, prepared to reset once more.
Dormammu sensed his intent and spoke.
"Wait. If you want to destroy Earth, there is something you should know. Just as I felt that force, I felt two others equal or even more powerful on the planet. If you destroy it, you could trigger a catastrophe worse than anything else, one that not even the Time Stone could save you from."
However, Thanos did not think about the warning, he was focused on Dormammu's first words.
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+2 chapters in advance on Patreon.
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(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)