War

Chapter 23

Janis' POV

   I tried to keep a low profile (https://shoplook.io/outfit-preview/5760251) as I trekked around New York on foot. I was on my way to the compound when a golden ring formed in front of me and a dude in a cloak appeared in the middle of it.

"Janis Stark?" He asked, trying to figure out if I was me. I was trying to get over how someone could just open a portal out in my path and didn't quite respond when I saw Uncle Bruce and my dad appear behind him. That was enough for me to snap out of my wonder. We exchanged pleasantries and hugged, then they gave me a breakdown of what was happening. The guy in the cloak was Doctor Stephen Strange, there was a blood-thirsty space giant, almighty stones, Uncle Thor dead, and they needed to find Vision. They called upon me, thinking Steve was around but I explained that I wasn't around Steve at the time, I was in New York looking for Tony. They made it clear that they needed Steve to find Vision, so I tasked myself with calling him as I told him I would before I left. Before I could even hit the contact on my phone, the sanctum we were in began rumbling.

"Say, Doc, you wouldn't happen to be moving your hair, would you?" My dad asked Strange as we were all wondering what was happening.

"Not at the moment, no." He responded. Now we all sort of had an idea of the goings on. I grabbed my "suitcase" as we went outside to investigate and saw the complete chaos that had irrupted around us. When we saw the gigantic glowing circle a ways away, we began telling Friday to evac and notify first responders. Two funky-looking fellows beamed down from the circular ship and began speaking of being thankful. My dad and I exchanged a "get a load of this guy" glance before he told them to get lost. The gray humanoid one asked Strange if my dad spoke for him, to which Strange said no and he and Wong popped out their light bright hand rings. I placed my case down on the ground and prepared to activate it when I noticed Uncle Bruce was having trouble hulking out.

"Really? The end of the world is upon us and you can't get it up?" I asked from behind him. My dad told him to stand down and with that, we suited up. Dad had a really cool nanobite suit and upon it emerging, all I could think was I gotta get me one of those. The fight was on with the bigger dude, who was having a fantastic time tossing us around when out of nowhere the spider kid from the airport showed up and joined in. I was never formally introduced, but this was not a great time for niceties. After being thrown around a bit more by the bigger guy, we heard the spider kid on our comms.

Uh, Mr. Stark, I'm being beamed up

   

   Dad told him to hang on and was about to get clobbered before Wong came in and saved the day by opening one of his portals and trapping the thing in parts unknown. Having been out of it for a moment there, I wasn't able to assist until I found my footing and blasted off with dad to go help the spider kid. Dad had a suit to help him breathe at this height sent up by FRIDAY and then he was promptly sent back to earth. Now it was just us trying to get Strange and keep the Squidward-looking guy from getting the stone. Our link to FRIDAY was lost the higher up in the atmosphere we got. All I could think was how much I hoped Uncle Bruce got a hold of Steve and the rest of the team to cover things down there.

   When the kid made his presence known while we were checking out the gnarly acupuncture that Strange was having done, I felt reminiscent of his fatherly bickering with me. He was clearly trying to protect the guy, and it was different watching him speak the way he does with me to someone else. I was finally introduced to the kid, who was called Peter or Spider-Man and we began concocting a plan. After Squidward got sucked into space through a hole in the ship and some more bickering between Strange and my pops, we all decided to take the fight to Thanos.

When the flying donut crash-landed on the planet, we were met by 3 new characters. A really big green guy, a girl with antennas, and another guy wearing a mask with red glowing eyes.

"Thanos!" The bulky one yelled out. Before anyone was able to figure out these guys' play, the battle between us and them erupted for a minute. The guy with the red eyes got Peter, and my dad had a beam aimed at the large one.

"Everybody stay where you are, chill the eff out." The one with the mask called out. I had my palms out and aimed in his direction, ready to take fire if he did anything funny. His mask retreated away to reveal a human man. "I'm gonna ask you this one time. Where's Gamora?" He wondered, pointing his weird handgun at my dad. A bit of back and forth between all of us finally lead to the conclusion that the human one was from Missouri and these guys were on our side. From there, we found out that Uncle Thor was still alive.

   Our new 7-man team began discussing what the plan was for when Thanos arrives, which was just an invitation for more arguing. Mantis pointed out what Strange was doing, which looked like an aggressive form of meditation. When he came to, he told us that there are 14,000,605 possible outcomes to this whole conflict but only one where we win. I hated those odds, passionately. I began to zone out of the remainder of the conversation, thinking about my friends, family, and Steve. Thinking about how they're doing down there and really hoping that they're able to get that stone that Vision has under wraps.

   When Thanos arrived, he seemed somber until we all began to hit him with everything we had. It was an effort, one after another to try and get that gauntlet off of him. A cyborg chick even showed up to join in. I helped Drax hold Thanos' feet down, dad and Peter got hold of the gauntlet, and Mantis got on his shoulders to try and subdue him. When Quill realized that he killed his girl, though, it was over. He began hitting him with his gun and woke him from his trance. We all went flying, plan unsuccessful. The only thing we succeeded in was pissing him off more, but we all tried again to keep him at bay. Thanos turned a moon into rubble and chunked it at us. A large stone flew at me and knocked me out. When I came to, Strange was giving Thanos the time stone. Seeing as he was talking a big game earlier about saving that thing over us, this must be part of the one outcome where we win somehow. My dad had been injured and was tending to the wound. I thought everyone else was out for the count when Quill came flying through and shot at Thanos. When Thanos disappeared, Quill took a look at what was happening around us.

"Did we just lose?"

   When it began happening, Mantis was disintegrated first. It was like watching ash blow through the wind. We all got wide-eyed at the sight of it, not completely sure of what was going on. Then Drax blew away, then Quill.

"Tony, Janis, there was no other way." Strange addressed us, we turned around to see him start dusting away as well. I began to count who all was still here in my head and my eyes went to Peter, who began repeating that he didn't feel good and didn't wanna go. He fell into my dad's arms as he faded away. My heart began to break for him, as he was just a child and confused. He didn't want to die. He just kept telling us that he didn't want to go. Peter fell to the ground, taking my dad with him and as he broke apart more, he whispered that he was sorry. I fell to my knees next to the pile of ash left behind and looked around. The only ones left were the blue girl, my dad, and me.

"He did it." The girl said. In a rare feat for two Starks being within 10 feet of each other, my dad and I were rendered speechless. This was it. We lost, and according to the Doc, there was no other way for us to ultimately win. I kept thinking about what must have happened down on earth. Thanos must have found Vision and plucked that yellow stone from his forehead. Wanda has to be crushed. That is if Wanda didn't get dusted also. My brain began to run through everyone we knew down there that may or may not be around if we ever make it back. Auntie Nat, Uncle Bruce, Thor, Uncle Rhodey, Pepper, Clint, Sam, and Bucky, who I had not gotten to speak to yet. Steve was a resilient man but there's no way he could dodge this if he was part of the selection process. There's no telling who could still be around. There was no telling if we would make it back to find out.