Then the guards who were defending the stronghold vanished from their places leaving behind the weapons. Thanos and Maw were able to see the people moving at high speeds behind with some difficulty. This way the shinobis who were on guard retreated. When Thanos turned his head he saw a man levitating wearing a cape and a golden helmet. This person had the Tesseract in his hand
At that point Thanos knew this was an ambush. Since he had already arrived on Mars even after he guessed that it might be an ambush, he couldn't go back now. He had brought an army with him so he had enough confidence to face a small group of people.
Even though this new guy who was levitating was a person he had never seen, he didn't care much. The person in the helmet levitated down opposite to him.
"You have been waiting for us?" Thanos asked.
"Oh yes. I have been waiting for you. It's been a long time for me. Almost 20 years. Waiting, making myself powerful enough to face you. But I got to say now that you are here I don't even fear you. But thank you for all the motivation you have given me all these years."
"You know all of this?" Thanos asked, raising his eyebrows.
"I know a lot. You have to be more specific." John asked.
"Then you know why I want that stone in your hand. I just want a new dawn in the universe. A universe which is grateful. A universe which will have a brighter future." Thanos said.
"Is that all your motivation Thanos? Answer me that at first." John said.
"Yes. This is all I ever wanted. I will kill half the population of the universe so that the other half could survive." Thanos said.
"Really now? Will you say the same if I bring your brother here?" John said. Thanos who had been calm all this time shuddered when John mentioned his brother. He looked at John for a few seconds and finally said.
"If you know my brother, then you must know why I am doing this. This is all the more reason for me to kill half the population. I don't want us all to just be a sacrifice for some God. I want us to control our own destiny. Not to be a food to them." Thanos said.
"So this was the plan? Kill half the population so that the Celestials can't be born. Do you even know maths? Will that stop the emergence? You will be stopping only the inevitable. At some point he population will reach it's max and emergence will occur anyway." John said.
"It might be. But I can only try. I have seen Titan being destroyed by my own eyes. My own planet. I can never allow others to face the same situation again. When others will know the truth in the future, they will follow my path and continue doing what I started." Thanos said.
"You are just a coward. Instead of confronting the Celestials you are here killing the innocents." John said.
"How dare you speak with my liege in that tone?" Maw said as he got annoyed by this new person's tone with his liege. Maw waved his hands. The soil surrounding John started rotating and creeping up on John to choke him.
John who saw this waved his hands. This small attack from Maw stopped in its tracks and instead behind Maw there was a huge hand structure made out of soil. The huge hit Maw with a huge force that threw him a few metres away.
"Your powers are quite weak. You must be popular with children." John said, using the same lines which Maw used when he faced Dr. Strange.
"Is this what you really want? You can join me and we can save this universe." Thanos said as he didn't even care that Maw was hit so badly. He didn't even look back at him. He wanted to convince this new person to join him. He could already see this golden guy was powerful and adding him will be very helpful in taking over time stone and mind stone.
"As I said before, you are just a coward. Instead of being a man and facing the Celestials you choose the other way. Do you think your cowardice can lead to any good?" John said.
"So you have decided to oppose me?" Thanos asked in a grave tone.
"No, my dear. I have decided to end you." John replied.
"So be it." Thanos said. And the next moment a dozens of small spaceships came flying down and landing. And from them, out poured the Outriders ( the aliens who attacked during Infinity war) and Chitauris. And then came the Leviathans.
They all landed over the stronghold behind destroying the newly made building. Maw too now got up, removed the dust from his clothes, came and stood by the side of Thanos.
"You think you are the only one with an army?" John said.
"Avengers. Assemble."
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Huge portals started opening behind John. And out came the people. The first were the Avengers. Wayne was leading in front with all the members. Including the Teen Titans. Then came the Guardians of the galaxy.
Thanos was surprised to see his daughter among them. She had been missing for quite a long time. Even though she was away, Thanos always kept an eye on her and her new team which she formed recently. He got to know that their team had a Green Lantern too so he was sure she was safe.
And then came a whole new army of ninjas. With all the 5 kages leading in front from different big portals. Their numbers were huge. All of them stood side by side with John while the army was behind. Tony even brought his iron legion too. Banner had already transformed into Hulk. The actual Hulk, not the professor Hulk.
Even the old Kages showed up for the war. John brought them too as he had sensed Thanos had amassed a larger army than the army he had during End game. Strange brought mages too for this war as they would help the Avengers a lot.
Only from Asgard, not many people came. Kratos, Loki, Erza and Thor's close friends who should have died during the Ragnarok arc.
"You have your own army. We have ours." John said.
"You stole my line." Steve said. John just shrugged at it. While Tony looked at Strange and said.
"Hey, in how many possible iterations of our future do you think we will win the war?"
"This time I am pretty sure about all iterations." Strange said.
"You are damn right we will." Tony said.
Obsidian couldn't hold it any longer. He threw his chain hammer at Tony. Wayne, who was close by, stopped the hammer with one hand. And before Obsidian could react, Wayne pulled the hammer using huge force.
This pulled Obsidian in return. The force was so huge that he almost flew to Wayne. And then Wayne used his other hand to punch at the head of Obsidian. The next thing that Thanos's army saw made their eyes wide.
That punch of Wayne was so strong that he blasted the head of Obsidian into bits of flesh, spilling blood all over the ground. Obsidian couldn't even cry in pain and met a swift death by just a punch alone.
When all saw this even John raised his eyebrows. He knew that Bruce was strong now but did not expect him to get used to new powers totally by now.
"So you see Thanos, you should never have come here. You should have stayed hidden all this time never to show your face." Wayne said. Thanos's eyes squinted when he saw such huge power by Wayne.
He had seen him in videos during the New York War. He was never that powerful before. But here suddenly out of nowhere he lost another member of the black order.
Thanos then raised his double sided huge blade pointing at them. The army behind ran to them following Glaive and Maw's lead. The Avengers and the army of ninjas also ran towards the enemy.
Wayne, Wanda, Tony, Strange and others who could fly rushed towards them. Naruto and Sasuke both used the Kurama mode and Suasno mode to handle the Leviathans. Those shinobis who could fight enemies which were of bigger size than them also joined in this.
The ninjas clashed with the army of chitauris and outriders and even though their number was larger than the ninjas, they were seriously outgunned. The ninjas had speed and more strength. They used cold weapons but that was enough. Wherever there were many enemies outnumbering the ninjas, they used ninja techniques to counter attack.
The mages too helped the ninjas in attacking the army of Thanos. Thanos on the other hand was personally confronted by Tony and Steve. Tony had seen how the other himself lost in the fight against Thanos in Titan. Only a small mark cut on his face. He wanted to change that. He wanted to challenge himself. He specifically asked for this.
Steve joined him because he felt that Tony needed help and like the war in the endgame, he used the Mjolnir. After seeing the fight in illusions of John he wanted to try if he could lift it up. And as expected he was able to pick it up. So Thor gave him the hammer for him to use. The other members of the Avengers fought against the others.
The witches faced Ebony Maw. Ciri, Yen , Triss and Wanda faced Maw. And as expected he was overwhelmed easily. Even though he was able to defend for sometime against the attack, a slash from Ciri's Zireael cut one of the hands of Maw. His telekinetic powers weren't able to stop an attack that cut through space itself.
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Thank you.
Read 230+ more chapters ahead at p@treon.com/thelightedghost. Thank you for the support.