Contest of Champions

7

As always, on Reaping Day, Odin stands to read from a book detailing the history of how our rule under Thanos came about and why we have the Contest of Champions. It's the same speech, every year, and it's our main source of all we really know about what happened, in those two wars.

Over forty years ago, Thanos started to collect the powerful gems known as the Infinity Stones, artifacts with tremendous power. Morag was his first stop, where Ronan the Accuser, a Kree warrior, and the Kree Starforce tried to stop him. The fight was long and brutal, but due to the power of Thanos' Black Order and the betrayal of one of Ronan's most trusted soldiers, they lost. She sided with Thanos and helped him to slaughter most of Starforce, her treachery kick-starting the Infinity War.

Ronan was able to escape with the Power Stone, being forced to wield it embedded in his hammer to get free. But with the Mind Stone already implanted in his Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos almost manipulated Ronan into giving the Stone back to him. The only thing he succeeded in doing was keeping the Kree from killing him, almost driving Ronan mad in the process.

The remnants of Starforce ended up on Asgard, where Hela and Odin received Ronan's story with apprehension, relieving him of the Power Stone. Immediately, Asgard prepared for war, determining who should go where to protect the rest of the Infinity Stones and who should shield their own people.

Midgard had two of the six Stones. Thanos would have to wind up there eventually. So Hela and a force of Valkyries, led by Brunnhilde, headed to Midgard to help the resistance there.

On Midgard, Howard Stark and Peggy Carter of SHIELD were forewarned of the coming menace by the arrival of Hela and Brunnhilde, who stopped to speak with them first, and they all ended up in Wakanda to take advantage of its cloaking field, bringing the Tesseract along with them to better protect it. King T'Chaka, the Black Panther, pledged his support to the resistance effort and Agent Carter started summoning the heroes she knew about to come join the fight, including Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Thanos didn't go straight to Asgard, however. His next stop was London, where he launched an attack on the Sanctum where the Masters of the Mystic Arts reside. The Ancient One and Kaecilius, the only sorcerers present, fought back valiantly, but Thanos and his Black Order somehow managed to get the Time Stone as strangely, no reinforcements arrived at the Sanctum.

Asgard was Thanos' next stop. There, he found a force of einherjar warriors, led by Odin, waiting for him. The following battle demolished half of Asgard and basically both armies were slaughtered. Frigga and Heimdall both lent their expertise to the fight and Ronan and his remaining warriors did their best, but Thanos managed to overcome them with the Mind Stone and the Time Stone, sending many warriors falling by making them go insane or trapping them in time loops. This time, he achieved the Power Stone from the ruins of my people.

Thanos went to Vormir to find the Soul Stone, somehow got it, and then headed to Wakanda with another army, where the most notorious of the rebels had assembled. The Ancient One and her sorcerers were there, Kaecilius leading the charge.

A large battle ensued and Thanos ended up with the Tesseract, killing the Wasp as she grappled with him for the Space Stone. He then vanished, taking his warriors with him to find the Reality Stone.

Odin, Heimdall, Frigga, the rest of the Valkyries, and Ronan and the remaining Starforce members were ready for him on Jotunheim, where the last Stone, the Reality Stone, had been found. The Nova Corps and a select group of Ravagers had also joined them there for the final battle, King Laufey of the frost giants leading forth an army to join the other assembled warriors.

Hela and Brunnhilde managed to make it to Jotunheim in the middle of the final battle of the Infinity War, but it was of no use. Thanos managed to obtain the Reality Stone and snapped his fingers.