Chapter Text
Thanos had all six Infinity Stones...for 0.02 seconds.
Then they flew away from him and floated over to a group that had previously gone unseen and unnoticed. As the stones flew over to them, they drew in a circle around the Titan. Thanos looked around at them. Every second one of them held their hands out and a stone came to rest above their palms. All twelve glared at him with glowing orange eyes.
‘Who are you?’ T’Challa demanded.
They said nothing. The Infinity Stones began to glow brightly. Before anyone could react, the ground began to shake violently. The power of the stones pulsated. The eyes of the twelve glowed even more brightly. Then...something was happening. Power, Reality, Space, and Time synchronised their dimension to another. Mind was used to shield the mental presences of each universe from harm. Soul made the distinction between what parts remained and what parts would be absorbed into itself.
(Let’s just say there were...preferences.)
And both universes shook.
***
The shaking roused a particular billionaire from a sleep he’d happily fallen into – for once.
Diana lifted her head from his chest. ‘There are no tectonic plates under Gotham, are there?’
‘No.’ Bruce rolled out of bed and quickly dressed.
He was slightly disappointed to see Diana doing the same thing, but priorities and all that. The two of them quickly rushed out of the room. The house was still shaking as they rushed out of the room and downstairs. Bruce glanced over as he passed the portrait in the hall. The picture of his parents had, miraculously, remained on its hook.
As they moved down the stairs, Alfred materialised.
‘The whole planet seems to have shaken, sir,’ he said. ‘Severe enough that we could feel it, but not severe enough to do any significant damage. Even the planet’s fault lines seem to have stayed reasonably stable.’
‘Was it done on purpose?’ Diana asked.
‘So it would seem, Miss Prince,’ Alfred said. ‘There is no apparent reason for the planet to have moved and the damage is too controlled for it to be otherwise.’
Bruce frowned. There was a crackling of electricity and Barry was suddenly there.
‘But who would want to?’ he asked. ‘And why?’
‘Hm.’ Bruce’s phone suddenly rung and he lifted it up and answered it. ‘Clark?’
‘I heard all that, Bruce,’ Clark said. ‘And I’ve got some other news for you. Some of the Earth’s geography has changed too. And there seems to be a pitched battle in an African nation that didn’t exist before. I’m gonna go and check it out.’
‘Huh.’ Bruce remarked. ‘Okay, You got your bodycam?’
‘It’s on and broadcasting,’ Clark said.
Bruce nodded. ‘We’re all heading to the Batcave. We’ll watch the footage live.’
‘I’ll try and get all the relevant information.’
Bruce nodded and hung up. He glanced over as the door opened and Arthur walked in.
‘What the Hell was that?’ he demanded. ‘I felt it all the way down in Atlantis.’
‘That’s what we’re about to find out,’ Bruce said.
Wakanda
As soon as the ground stopped shaking, Thanos demanded, ‘What did you do?’
Steve wanted to know that himself.
None of the twelve answered him. The brunette American turned her head. ‘Oh, Joel. Better use the space stone to open a portal for Tony, Spider-Man, Strange, and the Guardians.’
The man holding the Space Stone nodded and lifted it. A portal opened and the brunette walked over. She stuck her head through and called out something. When she pulled back, it didn’t take long for Iron Man to step through, fully armoured up, followed by Spider-Man, a man with a flowing cloak and a similarly strange style of facial hair as Tony, and a group of others, of which only one looked human. That group immediately moved over to greet Rocket and Groot.
Tony, for his part, completely ignored them. He walked over to the brunette. ‘Sharee, did you guys do something. We were on Titan and we felt the shake. It seems like it affected the whole universe.’
‘I only want to explain this once,’ Sharee said. ‘So…Mai?’
The Asian woman cocked her head. ‘Fifteen seconds.’
‘If you can wait,’ Sharee checked her watch, ‘twelve more seconds, I’ll tell you.’
Then the rest of them took turns counting down.
‘Eleven.’
‘Ten.’
‘Nine.’
‘Eight.’
‘Seven.’
‘Six.’
‘Five.’
‘Four.’
Thanos raised his arm and his army began to converge on them.
‘Three.’
They didn’t even respond.
‘Two.’
‘One.’
Something hit the army. It moved in a blur of red and blue. The entire army was thrown back. Their weapons were broken – every last one of them. And none of Thanos’s soldiers got up again. Then the figure came to a stop in front of Thanos, cape billowing in the wind and a large “S” emblazoned on the back.
‘Is that actually an S?’ Tony immediately asked. ‘Or is he and alien and it just looks like one?’
Natasha scoffed, but Sharee cut her off before she could disparage the stupid question.
‘The latter.’
Steve froze. What? Why…?
‘Who are you?’ Thanos asked. ‘I’ve been all over the universe and never encountered one like you.’
‘Yes, my powers do exist only in very specific circumstances,’ the man said. ‘I am Kal-El, but the people of this world call me Superman.’
‘Really?’ Tony asked.
The one holding the green Infinity Stone spoke up. ‘Great big “S” on his chest – to human eyes, anyway – buns of steel and powers like that. Of course they called him Superman.’
Tony, of all things, snorted in amusement. ‘Checks out.’
‘What do you mean?’ Bruce Banner reminded everyone of his presence.
Tony responded to him, albeit somewhat frostily. ‘How do you think I got “Iron Man”?’
Steve went to reprimand him. But then Thanos struck out at Superman. The caped man only lifted a hand and stopped the attack. He didn’t grit his teeth. He didn’t need to brace one hand with the other. Quite the opposite in fact. It was Thanos who gritted his teeth and exerted force. Superman was unmoved.
Then, with the slightest push, Superman knocked him onto his backside.
‘Leave this planet,’ Superman said. ‘Leave, and never come back.’
‘Do you know who I am?’ Thanos snarled, staggering to his feet. ‘I am Thanos! I am the Last Titan!’
Superman folded his arms. ‘If you are the last, it hardly makes sense for you to take armies to other planets and wage war on them. What could you possibly gain from it?’
Thanos stared at him. ‘Do you know why I am the last Titan, Kal-El?’
‘Enlighten me,’ Superman responded. Why? Why would he want to listen to Thanos? He should just beat him and be done with it.
Steve opened his mouth.
‘Shut up, Rogers!’ Mai barked. ‘Let the man talk.’
Superman glanced back at him, but returned his attention to Thanos as the huge man rose.
‘When my people were dying, I quickly realised the problem was that the population was too great for the natural resources Titan produced,’ Thanos said. ‘I suggested indiscriminately killing half the population, but I was ignored and dismissed and they died anyway.’
‘So now you’re trying to “fix” the resource problem for the rest of the universe?’ Superman shook his head. ‘If you were right, wouldn’t the problem have resolved as more and more of your people dwindled? I presume your race slowly died out? Wouldn’t, then, it be the case that as the numbers dropped, those resources would have been freed up for the remaining?’
Thanos started at him, non-comprehending.
‘Oh, my God,’ Tony remarked to Rhodes. ‘Superpowers and common sense.’
Rhodes was heard to snort though he didn’t lower his helmet. He’d been cordial when they showed up and all he said to Ross, when ordered to arrest them, was “we’re out of options”. Steve wasn’t sure what story Rhodes had heard, but there hadn’t been time to set him straight about Siberia. He had plans to do it later.
‘Yeah,’ Sharee said. ‘We’ll get to why that’s such a rarity around here…later.’
Superman inclined his head.
Wanda suddenly screeched send a blast of red magic. Superman jerked back, narrowly avoiding it but Thanos’s head was blasted off. His body dropped down. Steve grinned, but it didn’t last long. Before anyone knew what’d happened, one of the twelve – who wasn’t holding an Infinity Stone – reached out and took a hold on her wrist.
Wanda froze, eyes bugging and mouth open in a silent scream.
Then he let go and she dropped. He stepped over her. Wanda glared and thrust her hands at him…but nothing happened.
‘What have you done?’ Steve demanded. ‘What did you do to her?’
‘Relax,’ he said in a Russian accent. ‘I didn’t hurt her. I just used my power to strip away artificial powers.’
‘Considering how she used them,’ Superman said. ‘That’s a good thing.’
‘What?’ Steve demanded. What was he talking about? ‘She’s just a kid!’
By now Wanda was on the ground on her knees staring tearfully at her hands. Then she glared up at the Russian man. ‘Give me back my powers!’
The Russian man ignored her and lifted his own hand. Something silver and red flew out of the woods, around where Vision had died, and the man twisted his hand, forming it into a ball. He then dropped the ball onto the ground and, hands in pockets, seemed to roll it ahead of him.
‘Moving on!’ Sharee put her hands in her own pockets and approached Superman. ‘Joel, would you put up a force field. These guys have been nothing but rude since I’ve met them and I don’t want them physically interrupting.’
Steve huffed but the blond man lifted a hand and a force field appeared around them.
At this point, both Tony and Rhodey clearly felt comfortable enough to roll down their respective helmets. Superman glanced at them in some interest but said nothing.
‘I presume you came here because of that massive planet shake we all would’ve felt,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Superman said. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know what caused it, would you?’
‘Well, yes,’ Sharee said. ‘We did.’