The Soulmate Initiative: Book 2

2. The Space Stone

LOCATION: SPACE

"This is the Asgardian refugee vessel, Statesman. We are under assault. I repeat, we are under assault. The engines are dead, life support failing. Requesting aid from any vessel within range. We are 22 jump points out of Asgard. Our crew is made up of Asgardian families. We have very few soldiers here. This is not a warcraft. I repeat, this is not a warcraft."

A ginormous ship has severed the Statesman into two pieces, the Asgardians and friends are separated. As they became under attack, Tasia put Heimdall, Korg, Valkyrie, Lady Sif and Lavina each in charge of a group of people. While Hulk and herself stayed together. As the ship was severed, Thanos and his team, the Black Order, attacked in person. Thanos sealed the back half of the ship up, so that those inside would remain alive, he even gave them a push so they started floating away from the other half, with them unable to do anything. In that back half are; Korg's group and Valkyrie's group, who have most of the civilians, plus Lavina's group, including Prisha. Lavina sees the people on the front half being slaughtered, then she suddenly hears a voice echoing around in her mind, a young man "You know what he wants. He has to have it. He has to take it. You have to give it to him." She tries ignoring the voice, but there's a familiarity about it's presence, she remembers it now. It's coming from the Tesseract. She knows that if they don't find the Space stone, they'll kill everyone. So she creates an illusion of herself in the front half of the ship.

Thanos then boards the front half of the ship, where the Black Order have already slaughtered almost everyone, but Tasia, Hulk, Heimdall and illusion Lavina, stepping out from the shadows. The Black Order together manage to bring them all to the ground, Heimdall barely holding on to life. There is fire and rubble everywhere. As Thanos approaches, Ebony Maw, one of the Black Order, speaks "Hear me and rejoice. You have had the privilege of being saved by the great Titan. You may think this is suffering. No. It is salvation. Universal scales tip toward balance, because of your sacrifice. Smile. For even in death, you have become children of Thanos." Thanos walks over to where Tasia is laying on the floor "I know what it's like to lose. To feel so desperately that you're right. Yet to fail, nonetheless." He grabs Tasia by the front of her clothing and slowly carries her towards illusion Lavina "It's frightening. Turns the legs to jelly. But I ask you, to what end? Dread it, run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. And now, it's here. Or should I say… I am." He stops and curls his left fist, showing that he's wearing a gold gauntlet, a glowing purple stone attached to it. He puts Tasia on her knees and holds her head in his giant hand, Tasia catches her breath "You talk too much." 

The Black Order surround illusion Lavina and Thanos looks her right in the eyes "The Tesseract. Or your sister's head." He holds his fist closer to Tasia's face and the Black Order point their weapons at illusion Lavina "I assume you have a preference." Lavina keeps herself calm, or at least tries to "Oh, I do. Kill away." Thanos looks surprised, but holds the purple stone to Tasia's head, she screams out in pain and Lavina realises he really will kill her and there's no way of just getting out of this situation "Alright, stop!" Thanos pulls his fist away and Tasia gasps for breath "We don't have the Tesseract. It was destroyed on Asgard." Illusion Lavina tries not to look guilty and summons the glowing blue Tesseract, Tasia groans "You really are the worst sister." Illusion Lavina slowly approaches, talking directly to Tasia "I assure you, sister. The sun will shine on us again." Thanos chuckles a little "Your optimism is misplaced, Jotun." Illusion Lavina chuckles "Really? We have Hulk." Hulk charges over and tackles Thanos, the pair are as large as each other, they are both incredibly strong, but Hulk is angrier. One of the Black Order steps forward, weapon in hand, but Ebony puts up a hand to stop him "Let him have his fun." All of a sudden, the tables turn, Hulk is no longer winning, Thanos is beating Hulk terribly. He throws her to the ground, where she doesn't move, unconscious. 

Tasia runs at Thanos and hits him with something, but he doesn't even flinch. She tries again but he just hits her and she goes flying across the floor. Ebony uses his powers to summon metal from the debri and sends it at Tasia, he fully restrains her. Heimdall and Tasia lock eyes, they know they don't stand a chance, but there is one thing they can do. Tasia nods and Heimdall, laying on the floor, uses the last of his strength "Allfathers… let the dark magic flow through me one last time." He holds out his hand in Hulk's direction and she is collected in the bifrost, coming to consciousness as she starts moving. Heimdall pants and Thanos approaches him, taking a spear from one of his team "That was a mistake." He stabs Heimdall, finally killing him, as Tasia shouts out "NO! You're going to die for that!" Ebony summons one last piece of metal to cover Tasia's mouth and puts a finger to his lips "Shh." Ebony picks up the Tesseract off the ground, from where it had been knocked from illusion Lavina's hand when the Titan and Hulk had started fighting. He gets onto one knee in front of Thanos, holding the Tesseract out in front of him "My humble personage bows before your grandeur-" Thanos removes his gold helmet "-No other being has ever had the might, nay, the nobility-" Thanos unclipped his gold chest plate and lets it fall to the floor "-to wield not one, but two infinity stones-" Thanos takes the Tesseract in his hand "-The universe lies within your grasp." Thanos crushes the Tesseract, energy blasts from it and left in his hand, is a bright blue stone, which he places onto his gauntlet "There are two more stones on Earth. Find them, my children and bring them to me on Titan." They all bow "Father, we will not fail you." 

Illusion Lavina looks out into space, to where the other half of the ship is drifting away, out of one of the windows she sees herself and quickly interrupts "If I might interject. If you're going to Earth, you might want a guide. I do have a bit of experience in that arena." Thanos comments "If you consider failure, experience." "I consider experience, experience. Almighty Thanos-" She starts to slowly approach him "-I, Lavina, Princess of Asgard. Odinsdottir…" She looks to Tasia a second, secretly trying to tell her sister she has a plan "-the rightful Queen of Jotunheim, Goddess Of Mischief-" She summons a dagger in her left hand, behind her back, as she continues to slowly approach Thanos "-do hereby pledge to you my undying fidelity." She tries to attack Thanos with her dagger, but she can't get closer than a few centimetres from his head. She is stuck in place, blue glowing from the new stone in his gauntlet. Thanos smiles "Undying?" He grabs her wrist, gently at first "You should choose your words more carefully." Then he squeezes harder, forcing illusion Lavina to drop the dagger. He then grabs her by the neck and picks her up, choking her,  she manages to get out "You… will never be… a God." Thanos just smiles and snaps illusion Lavina's neck. Tasia strains against the metal holding her tight "No!" Thanos walks illusion Lavina over to Tasia and drops her on the floor in front of her, as he does so, she shatters into tiny little pieces of ice. With Lavina's illusion completely dead and because she had stayed the who time so Thanos didn't know it was an illusion, she can never again cast an illusion of herself. She also feels very weak and immediately falls unconscious. She isn't happy with the outcome, but she had to at least try. Prisha holds Lavina in her arms and watches as they float further and further away from Tasia, if they had been much further away, Lavina wouldn't have been able to cast her illusion any longer because the distance would have been too great.

Back in the front half of the Statesman, Tasia starts crying, seeing her sister shattered into ice, Thanos doesn't look too shocked about the death, she was a Frost Giant after all "No resurrection this time." He holds up his fist and the purple stone glows, everything around them then glows and everything starts blowing up. The blue stone then glows, he and his group teleport away. The metal releases Tasia and she crawls to the pieces of ice. She lays down next to them and continues to cry "No… Vina." She just lays there, as the ship explodes, leaving her drifting in space.