ETERNALS ⚒ INFINITY WAR

00 : prologue

PROLOGUE

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"Hear me, and rejoice; you have had the privilege of being saved by the great titan. You might think this is suffering, no, this is salvation. Universal scale's tipped toward balance because of your sacrifice. Smile, for even in death you have become children of Thanos," Ebony Maw stated, whilst walking around the ship, trying his best not to step onto any dead Asgardian body.

"I know what it's like to lose," Thanos said as he turned his body back to face where Loki is standing. "To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail, nonetheless," he added.

He stopped moving and glanced below, just right beside his feet. Thanos grabbed the weak and hurting Thor by his collar. He dragged the God of Thunder with him as he walked towards Loki.

"Dread it. Run from it. Destiny still arrives. Now, it's here, or should I say... I am." Thanos stopped walking and raised his other hand (that wears the gauntlet) and clenched his fist, making the power stone glow brighter.

"You talk too much," Thor said, with blood dripping from his mouth, yet he still wasn't bothered by it.

"Now, choose, the tesseract, or your brother's head?" Thanos asked as he gripped Thor's head with his bare hand.

"Kill away," Loki said, a bit of cockiness lingering in his voice. Thanos slightly tilted his head sidewards, his lips forming into something that looked like a smirk as he began to press the power stone, in his gauntlet, into Thor's temple. Loki watched without showing the hurt that he feels inside of him as his brother screamed in agony. He thought he could bare it, just for his foolish act and trick, but he could not. "Alright, stop!" Loki exclaimed.

Thanos held the purple stone away from Thor, while Loki did not stop his self to breathe out and close his own eyes in relief.

"We do not have the tesseract, it was destroyed on Asgard," Thor cried out.

But then, Loki raised his right hand, and the tesseract was immediately there. Thanos smiled, while Thor mumbled incoherent words because of his confusion. Loki walked closer towards Thanos, with the tesseract still in hand, until he gave it to Thanos.

The titan destroyed the tesseract and attached the space stone in his gauntlet. He yelled in delight as he felt yet another power flow inside his body. Looking at the gauntlet, he smiled. "You sure know what you should be doing, Asgardian."

"As a matter of fact, we will actually be having that back again shortly. Oh, and by the way, I'm not an Asgardian," Loki said, earning Thanos' full attention once again, "and for another, we have a hulk."

Hulk's roar and his heavy footsteps were heard before he lunged at Thanos, making him lose his grip on Thor. The two fought, both heavy handed. The Hulk threw punches after punches, giving his all just to defeat the titan. Although in the end, Thanos won primarily because of the stones in his gauntlet.

Thor stood up still tried to kill Thanos despite the state that he is in. He threw a metal shard towards Thanos, but the malevolent being dodged it. Then, he punched Thor in his guts that made him fly backwards and end up locked inside a makeshift cage, made by Ebony Maw.

"There are two more stones on earth, find them my children and bring them to me," Thanos commanded to his four children, namely: Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, and Cull Obsidian.

"Father we will not fail you," Proxima said as the four of them kneeled in front of Thanos.

"If I might interject, if you're going to earth, you might want a guide. You don't have a bit of experience in that arena," Loki said.

"You consider failure, experience?" Thanos asked.

"I consider experience, experience," Loki stated. "Almighty Thanos, I Loki, Prince of Asgard, Odinson, the rightful king of Earth, God of mischief, do hereby pledge to you my undying fidelity," he added and bowed. Meanwhile, Thor remained silent and scrunched his eyebrows together instead after he had seen a dagger hidden in his brother's hand.

Just like what he had expected, Loki attempted on piercing that dagger onto Thanos' neck but he was stopped immediately, again, with the help of the gauntlet.

"Undying?" Thanos asked, "you need to choose your words more carefully." He grasped Loki's hand and twisted it, making the dagger fall down onto the ground. He then grabbed Loki by the neck and raised him upwards. Loki's body shook as he gasped for air. He clutched Thanos hand as he was choked.

Heimdall, who was lying down on the ground in the brink of death, summoned the bifrost after he let out words of help to the gods. The bifrost took both the Hulk and Loki away onto somewhere far from where they are.

Once the bifrost faded away, Thanos walked closer to Heimdall and looked at him straight in his eyes. "That was a mistake," Thanos said, before piercing Heimdall's heart with a sword.

"No!" Thor exclaimed. At the same time, a blinding flash of white light was seen by the six who are still present and alive. The ship that they were riding exploded and turned into small particles that seemed to sparkle like little stars.

The explosion sent Thor floating away from the space where the ship was. His consciousness faded as time passed by, but he knows that he will remember the last few things that he saw before he passed out: Thanos retreating with his children through the use of a portal, and a white animate object flying not far from him.

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END OF PROLOGUE