The Final Battle – Part 4
Thanos watched the newcomer with an amused and mocking look. He slowly closed his fist, making the metal of the Gauntlet ring out as three of the Stones began to glow. His presence became even more imposing.
"Is this guy some kind of final boss who keeps changing health bars or something?" Tony couldn't help saying as his suit's energy sensors kept throwing warning after warning at him.
The Power, Space, and Reality Stones began glowing at the same time.
The energy surrounding the Titan suddenly increased, making even the air itself seem heavier.
"Energy levels increasing."
"Detecting multiple spatial anomalies."
"Recommendation: maintain distance."
"Yeah... thanks for the advice," Tony replied sarcastically as he rose higher into the air again.
"You're welcome," Friday responded with complete naturalness.
Tony began charging energy into his cannons again and aimed toward Thanos.
Thor, who had just arrived, kept his eyes fixed on the Titan, showing a fury only he seemed to understand. He didn't wait for anyone's signal before his body moved through the sky.
Thor threw Stormbreaker ahead of him and descended after the weapon, wrapped in a bolt of lightning that looked as if it wanted to split the sky in two.
At the same time, Owen reappeared on Thanos's left side. Hercules, after finishing his cleanup work, descended from the sky with that same smile of his while gripping his mace with both hands.
And Strange completed another spell.
Dozens of golden circles appeared around the Titan, while Blue Marvel emerged from one of the portals with blood running from his lips, but still charging antimatter energy into both fists to launch his attack.
Thanos simply smiled.
Under the combined power of the three Stones, every attack seemed to slow down before his eyes.
Within that slowed time, Thanos gently moved his fist.
The Space Stone glowed.
Stormbreaker, which Thor had thrown, suddenly passed through a dark blue portal and disappeared.
Then another portal opened directly in front of Blue Marvel, and the axe reappeared, pointed straight at his chest.
"What...?"
Adam barely managed to knock the weapon aside with his forearm before it could pierce his chest.
But the weapon still carried the force of hundreds of lightning bolts, which tore through his body and crashed violently against his antimatter energy.
"ARGH!" he couldn't help letting out as Thor's lightning fought against his antimatter energy.
Owen glanced toward Adam for an instant.
But he didn't stop his attack.
He had already reached Thanos.
The two crimson daggers descended toward his neck, and just when they seemed about to pierce it, the Titan's body turned into a kind of dark smoke.
The daggers passed through empty space.
And before Owen could react...
The Power Stone lit up the Gauntlet.
"BOOOOOOM!!"
The punch struck Owen directly in the abdomen.
The shockwave opened a massive crack stretching across several streets as Owen was sent flying, crashing through an entire building.
Even while redirecting the kinetic energy from the blow, he seemed unable to properly redirect all of its power.
Even so, he managed to redirect part of the impact into the building he crashed into. The crimson energy traveled through the entire structure and reduced it to dust, releasing part of the force that would have torn his body apart.
Tony's eyes widened.
Thanos was already in front of him.
The reactor in his chest fired a massive energy beam.
The Titan didn't even try to dodge.
He opened the palm of the Gauntlet.
The energy simply disappeared into another bluish portal, though a smaller one.
A fraction of a second later, the same beam emerged behind Tony.
"What the hell?!"
Tony barely managed to twist his armor around.
The attack grazed one of his thrusters, making him lose balance for several seconds.
"Now I've got you!" Hercules shouted as the enormous mace came crashing down with all his strength.
Thanos raised a single arm to stop it.
The impact shook the entire city.
But before the demigod could continue attacking...
The ground disappeared.
The Reality Stone had transformed the entire avenue into an enormous black swamp.
Hercules began sinking up to his knees.
"Huh?"
Thanos took advantage of that instant to drive a knee directly into the god's chest.
Hercules was sent flying several kilometers.
But Thanos suddenly appeared directly in the path Hercules was flying through, caught him by the leg and, while still in the air, spun around before hurling him toward the ground with all his strength.
"BOOOM!"
The explosion raised a massive cloud of dust. The swamp created by the Stone spread toward the point of impact and began moving as though it were alive, wrapping Hercules in a dark embrace.
Thor appeared again, wrapped in lightning.
Stormbreaker returned to his hand like a bolt of lightning.
Without slowing down, he spun around and swung toward Thanos, holding the weapon with both hands.
This time, Thanos didn't even look at the weapon.
Instead, he raised his hand and pointed toward Thor as though grabbing something in the air.
The Space Stone glowed once again.
Thor felt gravity close around him from every direction, compressing his body and stopping his attack for an instant.
"AAAARGH!" he roared, forcing himself to move anyway.
It was like a tightly stretched rope being suddenly released.
But when his axe finally reached Thanos...
He was no longer there.
Now he was standing on the ground directly beneath him, looking up at him with disdain.
Meanwhile, Blue Marvel reappeared.
All the antimatter in his body began concentrating around his fist, taking advantage of the fact that Thanos didn't even seem to be looking at him.
"BOOOOOOOM!!"
The punch that should have struck Thanos stopped only a few centimeters from his body. Adam then realized that the Titan had hidden the Gauntlet behind his back, using the Space Stone to raise an invisible barrier.
But before Thanos could attack, Strange moved his hands, creating a portal right beside the Titan.
Owen came out of the portal with his body covered in small cuts, caused by the energy he hadn't managed to dissipate, which had also damaged his muscles.
Even so, he threw a repulsion-charged punch directly toward Thanos's face.
Strange moved his hands, and the golden magical chains once again wrapped around the Titan's legs and left arm.
Thor descended from above, summoning an even more powerful storm with Stormbreaker.
Hercules burst out from beneath the ground completely covered in mud and leaped toward Thanos with his mace.
Tony prepared every weapon his suit had.
Then, without hesitation, all the attacks converged on a single point.
Not on Thanos.
But directly on Owen.
The attacks struck Owen's back, and since he was already standing in an attacking stance, he was prepared to guide the mixture of energy through his body and toward his fist.
Thanos pushed Blue Marvel away, raising the hand with the Gauntlet to strike Owen.
But Hercules had already appeared in front of him and swung the mace directly toward his head. The force of the blow was so absurd that the air around it grew dense, as though it were trying to slow the weapon down.
At that exact moment, the lightning from Stormbreaker and Tony's cannons struck Owen's back.
His body absorbed the attacks and began converting them into crimson energy, channeling it through every muscle fiber. However, the part he couldn't contain slowly tore his body apart from within.
But with every centimeter it traveled through his muscles, the crimson energy became more and more intense.
The energy grew so dense that it looked like liquid blood flowing through his body, mixing with the violent flames that began erupting from his skin.
Instinctively, Thanos raised his arm to protect himself from Owen's attack, which looked far more dangerous.
The crimson energy crashed against Thanos's defense and rose into the sky like a sea of liquid flames.
It was as if the air suddenly dried up. The crimson pillar rose high enough to be seen from hundreds of kilometers away, erasing everything that remained at the center of the battlefield.
Even the Gauntlet, raised to contain the attack, warped for an instant beneath that heat while Thanos felt his skin burning as he endured the power.
All of Thanos's attention was focused on containing that monstrous amount of energy.
But that defense made him completely forget about Hercules.
The demigod didn't stop his attack, not even when Owen's red flames engulfed his body and left his skin glowing red-hot.
Then the mace came crashing directly down onto Thanos's shoulder.
"CRACK!"
The bone broke.
His arm dropped limp, and the Gauntlet fell with it.
Then Owen's energy could no longer be stopped.
The Titan was blasted into the sky, wrapped in those crimson flames.
Thor was waiting for him there, with Stormbreaker ready to descend and split him in half.
But at the last possible moment, Thanos seemed to regain control of his body.
And just as the axe was about to cut him in half, he barely clenched his fist.
The Space Stone glowed, making his body disappear.
Then the axe came down where Thanos had been, and the power of the lightning created a massive electrical slash that carved a trench through the ground.
The discharge raced across the earth like a tide and forced even the heroes who believed they were standing at a safe distance to retreat.
"Tsk."
Thor clicked his tongue when he realized he had missed.
His gaze swept across the battlefield, now completely scorched, with areas where the ground had turned into molten stone and electricity crawled across the terrain like serpents.
Then Thanos emerged from a blue portal, but his body no longer had that invulnerable appearance.
One of his arms was hanging uselessly, the bones broken.
And most of his skin was burned.
Thanos clenched his teeth as he looked at the heroes who had done that to him.
With difficulty, he closed his injured hand inside the Gauntlet.
This time, all four Stones in his possession lit up at once.
And Thanos's body healed rapidly as though he had never been injured in the first place.
Every one of his wounds disappeared.
Even the Gauntlet returned to perfect condition.
Owen, meanwhile, was now surrounded by his repulsion energy and those red flames, which seemed to be slowly healing his body while at the same time wanting to destroy everything with their pure heat.
"Then..." Owen said with a serious look. "Let the final round begin."
Thor, Hercules, Tony, Strange, and Blue Marvel took their positions around Owen again without taking their eyes off the Titan.
Thanos answered only with a contemptuous grimace before closing his fist once more.
The four Stones shone in unison.