by Liza Palmer
WRITTEN BY LIZA PALMER
EH3
Lo» Anjjctc* • New York
© 2019 MARVEL
All rights reserved. Published by Marvel Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted m any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Marvel Press, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.
Designed by Catalina Castro
Cover illustration by Lente Scura
Illustrations by Steve Kurth
Cover art by Lente Scura
Cover design by Catalma Castro and Kurt Hartman
ISBN: 978-1-368-05237-5
Vis it www. D i sneyB ooks.com and www.Marvel.com
Contents
Title Page Copyright Part One Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Part Two Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Part Three Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Part Four Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Epilogue About the Author
Hovering dead in space, the ship was ablaze. Lights were blinking on and off as its power systems began to fail. A voice called out to anyone who could hear them, pleading for help. Beggmg for mercy.
"This is the Asgardian refugee vessel Statesman. We are under assault. I repeat, we are under assault! The engines are dead, life support is failmg. Requesting aid from any vessel within range. We are twenty-two jump points out of Asgard."
The ship responsible for the destruction of the Statesman dwarfed the vessel, menacing as it hung, its curved wings enveloping them. The colossal ship was the Sanctuary: II—the base of the galactic "Mad Titan," Thanos.
"Our crew is made up of Asgardian families. We have very few soldiers here. This is not a war craft. I repeat, this is not a war craft. "
Aboard the Statesman, a figure emerged from the destruction.
"Hear me, and rejoice."
Ebony Maw strolled through the wreckage. His flat, elongated face had sunken eyes and wide lips that stretched across a mouth that rarely smiled. Tufts of white hair swept down the back of his head. His tight black robes were trimmed m gold, and these, along with his dark pants and heavy boots, left only his face and hands visible. He pressed his hands together, his long fingertips touching gently, as pale and wrinkled as his face. His voice was unnervingly soothing given the chaos that surrounded him.
"You have had the privilege of being saved by the Great Titan."
He stepped over several bodies, all badly wounded. "You may think this is suffering."
Heimdall, former keeper of the Bifrost, grunted, bloodied and bruised as he tried to lift himself. Blood ran m his eye as he collapsed back down, mentally praying to Odm and the All-Fathers of old.
"No." Ebony Maw looked to the heavens, his voice raised. "It is salvation."
As Ebony Maw ambled among the dead and dying, the remainder of the Black Guard followed behind, putting those clinging to life out of their misery once and for all. Considered his "siblings," they were all found and raised by Thanos, taken from their home worlds as the Titan continued his march across the galaxy on a mission. A mission that only he and his disciples could fathom as just and noble. There was Proxima Midnight, her horned head and deep-set eyes glowering as she held her electric staff, charged and crackling. The lithe Corvus Glaive, looking like a dark hooded elf, held his double-ended spear by his side, ready for a fight. Cull Obsidian's huge frame dominated above them all, deadly techno-hammer gripped in his hands as he snarled, his scaly skin and bone-ridged head striking fear into the survivors who dared look upon him.
"Universal scales tip toward balance because of your sacrifice." Ebony Maw looked mto the eyes of a gravely wounded Asgardian, his face softening. "Smile," he said, as the dying woman heaved her last breath. "For even in death, you have become Children of Thanos."
Ebony Maw joined the Black Guard as they surrounded their prisoner—Loki, the God of Mischief himself.
Loki gave Ebony Maw a withering stare when Maw was finally done pontificating, but then slid his gaze to the figure that loomed above all else. The figure that these enemies called "Father": Thanos. His purple hide-like skin was covered in battle armor, his helmed head revealing cold, dispassionate eyes. And for the first time m his life, Loki decided to remam silent.
"I know what it's like to lose," came Thanos's measured, gravelly voice as he looked down at the wary, yet still defiant Loki. "To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail nonetheless."
Thanos looked down at the broken and battered figure at his feet and lifted Thor from the ground as if he were a rag doll. Then, Thanos effortlessly closed the space between him and Loki, while holding a squirming Thor closer to his adoptive brother.
"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."
Thanos dramatically lifted his hand to reveal that it was gloved in gleaming gold: the Infinity Gauntlet. Forged with six settings, one on each knuckle and a larger one on the back of the hand. Each setting was designed to hold an Infinity Stone, one of which he already possessed. The violet glow of the Power Stone pulsed as he flexed his fist and curled his fingers.
"You talk too much/1 Thor spat: blood dripping from his mouth. Loki's eyes flicked from Thanos to Thor: his mmd reeling with clever misdirects, resourceful trickery, and possible escape routes.
"The Tesseract." Thanos's voice was matter-of-fact. "Or your brother's head. I assume you have a preference/' Loki's face remained strategically expressionless as he appeared to weigh Thanos's proposition.
"Oh, I do/ said the God of Mischief his voice daring. "Kill away."
Thanos bit back his surprise at Lokf s apparent indifference to his adoptive brother, and without breaking eye contact, he tightened his hand into a fist: and placed the Infinity Gauntlet on the side of Thor 's face. The Power Stone lit up upon contact, and smoke instantly began to rise off Thor's searing flesh.
As Thor's cries echoed through the broken craft, Lola's false bravado faltered. He shook and battled to stay in control of his emotions, positive Thor could withstand any punishment, as he'd done so many times before. But Thor's heightening screams quickly became unbearable, and Loki came to realize how wrong he'd been. As Thanos looked on, Loki's red-rimmed eyes flashed in fear. This was not like those other times. He could endure this no longer.
"All right, stop!'' Loki yelled, his voice a frustrated roar.
Thanos removed his hand, and the Stone dulled. Loki closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief at Thor's now quieted screams. His head still gripped m the Titan's viselike hand, Thor coughed an explanation at Thanos. "We don't have the Tesseract. It was destroyed on Asgard."
Loki looked up with an expression Thor knew all too well. Thor looked in horror as his half-brother lifted his hand and the gleaming blue cube that was the Tesseract appeared from thin air. Thanos smiled as Thor flared with his one good eye. "You really are the worst brother," Thor sighed.
For his part, however, Loki remained confident, walkmg to Thanos, Tesseract in hand. His voice was steely and resolved. "I assure you, Brother, the sun will shine on us again."
Loki halted, steps away from delivering the Tesseract to Thanos, his face resolute. Thanos gave him a cold stare and laughed.
"Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian."
Loki lifted his chin stubbornly. His mouth curled into that know-it-all grin. "Well, for one thing, I'm not Asgardian. And for another..." His eyes lit up as the trickster god revealed the ace up his sleeve.
"We have a Hulk."
At that, Loki dropped the Tesseract and dove toward Thor, pulling
him to safety. With three loud THUDs: the Hulk charged from the side of the ship, leaped, and slammed into Thanos, knocking the giant figure against the wall. The crumbling ship shook as the two collided. Thanos hit the floor with an audible grunt. Hulk faced Thanos and let out a battle cry.
Hulk bounded toward the stunned Thanos and waylaid him with a series of powerful blows. Then he wrapped his hands around Thanos's neck and drove him deep into the Statesman s charred and crumbling walls. Cull Obsidian, seeing his "father" in distress, moved to intercept the Hulk, wanting to test his own massive strength against the green goliath, but Ebony Maw stopped the brute with a simple hand gesture.
"Let him have his fun," said Maw knowingly.
Thanos grabbed Hulk's wrists, peeled his hands away from his neck, and landed a mighty punch to Hulk's own neck. Stunned by Thanos's incomparable strength, the Avenger howled m pain and frustration; the tide turned with even* blow Thanos threw.
Thanos, having dazed the Hulk, grabbed him and hoisted him above his head in a single swift motion. With a wicked grin, Thanos slammed the stupefied hero to the floor. Seeing his friend in trouble, Thor painfully rose to his feet, grabbing a pipe. Just as Thanos was about to land a destructive blow, Thor swung the pipe, hitting the Titan across the back with a weak and embarrassing THWrOOP.
Retaliating, Thanos moved faster than Thor believed possible, pivoting on one foot and kicking the Thunder God squarely in the chest, sending him flying. Thor landed in the middle of twisted metal, wreckage from the limping ship. With a fluid gesture. Ebony Maw used his telekinesis to bend the metal around the Asgardian, binding him in place.
Heimdall scanned the carnage grimly from where he lay splayed out across the deck: mortally wounded but still alive, though luckily none of the Children of Thanos had seemed to notice as of yet. Thanos was unlike any enemy they'd battled, and he knew he must do somethmg before it was too late. Bravely summoning his last ounce of strength, Heimdall reached for his beloved sword, Hofund, one last time. As he clung to the last threads of life, his voice choked and stuttered. Riddled with pain, he closed his all-seeing eyes in prayer and spoke, "All-Fathers, let the dark magic flow through me one last time."
Hand on hilt, his palm began to glow. Before Thanos or the Children of Thanos could react, the rainbow energy of the Bifrost filled the ship and formed into a tunnel that enveloped the battered Hulk. In a bright blaze, the jade behemoth vanished, earned through the failing Statesman out into deep space, where the Bifrost arced and traveled at faster-than-light speeds through the galaxy. Heimdall's body fell, drained and relieved. The Hulk was saved.
Thanos turned to Heimdall, the Asgardian fully aware that he would not find the same salvation. He glared at Thanos, judging the villain as he approached the fallen Keeper of the Bifrost.
"That was a mistake/1 Thanos said, gripping Corvus Glaive's cruel-looking double-ended spear. Heimdall met Thor's eyes one last time, knowing his fate was sealed. Thor could only look on in helpless horror as Heimdall turned his gaze back to Thanos, who had lifted the spear high above his friend's weak and unprotected body. But Heimdall's eyes were bold and unwavering as Thanos plunged the spear into the Asgardian's chest.
"No!" Thor struggled against his metallic restraints, furious. His voice rattled in rage as Thanos twisted the spear deeper mto Heimdall's now lifeless body. "You're... going to ...die for that," Thor sputtered. But even with flexing his mighty muscles, Thor still couldn't get free of his bonds. He saw Ebony Maw flick his wrist once more, and a piece of salvage slammed agamst Thor's mouth, muffling his words to agonized grunts.
"Shh," Maw instructed calmly with a snide look.
Ebony Maw strode to the fallen Tesseract. Awestruck, he held it in his hands, the very cube that had driven people mad by the mere whispers of power it seemed to usher, filling the heads of less-willful bemgs. But Maw had long ago submitted to the fact that there was only one true power in the Universe: his master and adoptive father, to whom he now presented the Tesseract.
"My humble personage bows before your grandeur." Ebony Maw knelt before Thanos, lowering his head in reverence. In preparation to finally be in possession of the Tesseract, Thanos took off his helmet and armored breastplate. Maw lifted the cube with his spindly arms as Thanos loomed over him. "No other bemg has ever had the might, nay, the nobility? to wield not one, but two Infinity Stones."
One step closer to completing his mission, Thanos took the Tesseract rapturously from his humble serv ant's hands. He held it in his palm, awed and quieted by its power.
"The universe lies within your grasp," Maw's voice praised.
Suddenly, Thanos's massive hand closed around the cube and shattered it m a brilliant blaze. Opening his hand, he blew away the shards to reveal a gleaming oval Stone, the purest blue ever seen since the dawn of time itself.
The Space Stone pulsed radiant energy in its new master's hand.
Thanos deftly danced the Stone m his hands before gently holdmg it with his thumb and index finger. He raised his right hand, the gleaming Infinity Gauntlet shining. The Space Stone's "sibling," the Power Stone, began to vibrate m its place on the index knuckle. Thanos gently dropped the Space Stone mto the slot on his middle knuckle and was immediately awash m luminous blue energy.
With two Infinity Stones in his possession, Thanos seemed to stand even more formidably than he had a moment ago, if that was possible. He flexed the Gauntlet and smiled in satisfaction. He turned to face the Children of Thanos.
"There are two more Stones on Earth." His baritone voice reverberated across the ship. "Find them, ray children, and bring them to me on Titan."
Proxima Midnight dipped her horned head. "Father, we will not fail you," she vowed. Corvus Glaive and Cull Obsidian mirrored their sister's bow of acknowledgment.
Before they could leave, a tentative voice interrupted. "If I might interject," said Loki m a smooth and deceptively playful tone, "if you're gomg to Earth, you might want a guide." He smiled. "I do have a bit of experience in that arena."
"If you consider failure experience," Thanos taunted. He hadn't forgotten Lola's foiled attempt to take over New York with the aid of Thanos's Chitauri warriors six years earlier.
Loki squared off with Thanos and spoke emphatically. "I consider experience experience."
Conns Glaive moved his lithe body to intercept, but Thanos waved him off. Loki contmued. "Almighty Thanos," he said, voice filling with confidence, "I, Loki, prince of Asgard..." Loki trailed off. His bravado stripped away momentarily as his body softened. His next words were intimate and unguarded. "Odinson." Loki looked to Thor, trapped and muted, who could only watch in horror as Loki spun what was surely an elaborate and tangled web of trickery and swagger.
Loki continued walking toward the Titan. "The rightful king of Jotunheim, God of Mischief." Thanos missed the glint of a knife hidden m Loki's hand. But Thor saw it. His eyes flared with warning and worry and rage at his adoptive brother's flagrant stupidity and his inability to read this enemy as something worthy of more than Loki's usual parlor tricks. And perhaps a touch of admiration at his brother's bravery, no matter how naive. "Do hereby pledge to you my undying fidelity-." Loki took a deep, steadying breath and then, with blinding speed, he lunged at Thanos, knife held high...only to be stopped in midair, frozen m place by the Power Stone.
Thanos's eyes narrowed. "Undying?" The Titan mused as he gripped Loki's wrist. Twisting it, the knife fell from the would-be assassin's grip as bones cracked.
"You should choose your words more carefully," Thanos chuckled. In an instant, the gauntleted hand was around Loki's neck, squeezmg the life from him. Thanos's calculating, icy eyes watched as Loki twisted in agony, face turning blue.
Loki's miscalculation had another heartbroken witness. Disbelieving and utterly unable to help, Thor's entire being cracked from within as all he could do was watch, powerless to step m and save his younger brother one last time. Loki croaked out his final words: "You will never be...a god." Whether it was a threat
or a premonition, Thanos would never know. Nor, it seemed, did he care to find out, as he continued to tighten his grip.
Thor's muffled screams rose above his half-brother's dying gasps. As Loki's body went limp, Thanos walked Loki's now lifeless corpse closer to Thor, callously holding his now-dead adoptive brother up for closer inspection. Thor struggled to come to terms with whether this was real. Loki had "died" several times before, Thor reasoned, starting to panic. This time would be like all the rest. Loki was just playing his games. He would come back. Thor desperately studied his brother's body, lookmg for any signs of life, any imperceptible wink or smirk. But there was nothing.
Nothing.
No...this...this couldn't be happening. Sheer terror shot through Thor's body as Thanos casually tossed Loki's body to the ground. He landed near Thor, who choked out a heart-wrenching "NO!"
"No resurrections this time," Thanos stated plainly to Thor. Loki's broken, motionless body echoed that claim.
Thanos raised his hand and the Stones m the Infinity Gauntlet glowed as he made a fist. A black vortex formed behind the Children of Thanos. They stepped through it, disappearing. As soon as Ebony Maw had vanished, the metal shackling Thor clattered to the ground, as did the Asgardian himself.
Thanos gave him one last look, and Thor met his gaze, murder m his eyes. But before Thor could muster the strength to rise, Thanos was gone, the teleportation energy vanishing with him.
Thor crawled to his brother, pulling Loki's lifeless body closer to him. "No, Loki," he cried, softly. "No." Thor let his head fall onto Loki's chest and sobbed, finally coming to terms with the fact that this time, there were no games, no second or third or fourth chances.
Loki was dead. And there was nothing Thor could have done to stop it.
As Thor mourned his brother, the Sanctuary• II opened fire on the remains of the Statesman from the ink}- darkness beyond. Fires flared as the missiles impacted the ship, rippmg it apart. A silent explosion tore the remams of the once-great ship apart, scattering debris and fallen Asgardians across empty' space.