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He’d chosen this place for it’s long, sweet sunsets. For the quiet, for the gentle waving of the pink plumes in the distance. His work was done. Eventually, the galaxy would recognize what he’d done for them; given them paradise. They’d smile through their tears. Generations would know his great sacrifices and how he’d saved them. Now, Thanos could rest and watch the perfect streak of a shooting star in the distance. He was content in his triumph.
Half the galaxy gone in a split second. Billions - trillions - of innocents dead by a single hand. Vengeance burned on a million worlds, burned and howled and rose, fire in the darkness. A great migration of rage swept across the galaxy.
The air burned as fire fell from the sky, fire that gouged wounds in a quiet world, that rose screaming with empty eyes and limbs of bone and flame. They rushed like lava to one point, one place, one creature whose heart was bathed in betrayal and whose hand gleamed with the source of creation. Thanos rose bellowing, the swipe of his gauntlet eradicating matter, time, hope, life.
But Vengeance had been brought into being before time, existed beyond life and death, could not be undone from reality so long as the guilty remained.
Vengeance with four arms and blades for each one leapt, screaming, towards the Mad Titan and was swept into crumbling ash. Another, born from a world of water, with fiery tentacles and multiple burning eyes turned walls and floor to burning kindling. Another leapt forward, then another. Thanos swept fire into nothing, nothing into ice and void, consuming hatred. Ashes blew in the wind.
Vengeance from a small blue planet, the one that had seen Thanos’ victory first hand, cast chains of fire and, oh, bitter, bitter rage at the great betrayer. Smoke rose, and the reek of burning flesh as those chains found anchor on one massive limb. Vengeance howled in triumph. Within, the tiny mortal core, the seed around which Vengeance took shape howled as well. Mortal flesh and bone was willing fuel, mind and heart and soul - all eagerly thrown onto the fires of Vengeance to give it strength. Anything to get revenge for the lost; a friendship barely begun, a heart barely waking to life again broken, family dust on the wind. Grief was too painful, cast on the fire until only anger and the bloody hunger for revenge remained.
Hellfire chain was transformed into formless water by the will of the Mad Titan, a casual whim froze the fires of Vengeance itself into ruby glass, glass and bone shattered onto the stones of an alien world. Ashes danced in the wind.
Vengeance from another lost world, and Vengeance from another threw themselves howling at the target of their rage. The Titan threw them aside, flesh burning, shouting in anger and outrage. He quenched the fires of Vengeance.
Spent ashes swirled in the air, coalescing into sparks, sparks into angry flame, angry flame into Vengeance. Mortal grief fueled immortal rage and Vengeance screamed to existence in defiance and anger and madness. The Mad Titan cast Vengeance aside. Again. Again and again.
No matter how many times he destroyed them, they returned. No stone of time could erase them, no mind stone could master them, when the Titan reached out for the mortal souls that fueled the immortal rage that power turned aside. Each mortal, from every world, from every place, had paid their price willingly. Every time Thanos destroyed the myriad enemies burning before him, they sprung up again, unquenchable.
All the fires of Vengeance, every raging spirit of a million shattered civilizations, gathered in a conflagration until the very stone burned - even they were not enough to defeat the Mad Titan. They could not bring him the torment he deserved, but they would not turn aside, could not be overcome, and each destruction was followed by a fiery rebirth.
Fire rained down on a once peaceful planet. There would be no peace for the Mad Titan, no rest and never forgiveness.
END (5/11/18)