And the Soulstone said No

And the Soul Stone Said No

Version 1.1 – Thanos

“You should… have gone for the head.” Thanos mocked in a gasping sneer as he raised his left hand and brought his fingers together in a snap, refusing to be stopped by the axe now buried in his chest.

His perception shifted. The horizon was an endless red sky meeting a still surface of water. He glanced down, confirming that in this place his injury was absent.

Before him, between the pillars of a traditional gateway of her home world, was his favorite daughter turned child, just as the day he met her year before. They had stood under such a gateway together once before on the day he claimed her for his own.

“Daughter?”

“No. She will not speak to you again here.” A new voice interrupted as a petite woman encased in silverly white light stepped out from behind a pillar at the unmoving side of his daughter. “You have betrayed her and all the rest of the galaxy for the last time.”

Thanos frowned. “Who are you, to dictate what I can and cannot do? It is already done.”

“No, it is not. You failed to comprehend the nature of the Soul Stone. You attempted to violate its very nature and so, I am here.”

Thanos face twisted in rage. “I have given everything that was asked of me! I paid the price!”

“You may have proven the seriousness of your desire and personal conviction, the absoluteness of your mad obsession, but you still failed to comprehend the truth.”

“Who are you?” Thanos snarled. The force of his rage rippling out across the water.

“Infinity. Infinite possibilities. Infinite combinations. The seeds of life spread through them all. That is the duty of the Soul Stone. You’ve challenged enough of the Stone’s chosen guardians; you should be able to recognize one before you.”

Thanos eyes narrowed. “There was no such rumor about such a thing for the Soul Stone. Its keeper made no attempt to protect it.”

“He was not the Soul Stone’s Keeper. He was at best a guide for souls determined to seek the path of sacrifice. No, if anything, he was there as a warning to others who sought the stone for personal gain or harm, but in the end, he still failed to understand and so failed as a guide.”

Thanos’ rage burned through him until it was like ice. “My daughter died for that.”

“You sought balance, but at the price of destroying Life. You took the answer presented to you and assumed it was the correct one, the only one. Unwilling destruction of life for personal power gain. This is anathema to the Soul Stone’s very nature. Your plan was doomed to fail.”

Thanos hissed, “Then I’ll do it the hard way.”

The woman stepped between him and the still unmoving young form of his daughter. “No, you will not. The balance of life is not for you to decide.”

“And you will stop me?”

“As one you have tried to personally corrupt in your task, yes. For all aspects of Infinity are tied across all possibilities, and I will not let you proceed to condemn everything to chaos. Soul is out of your control, and Time already seeks to return to its own chosen guardian. Mind has developed a life of its own, and even now, is furious at your attempt to enslave it. Space chafes at the chains you have bound it with and would seek its freedom to travel and explore in an instant. Reality and Power both relish being close to the others, but fear it also and can sense their deaths in your hands. No, I will not leave them to you.”

Thanos scoffed, “And just how does a dainty thing like you plan to stop me. You are here with the spirits of the dead.”

Her eyes glowed bright blue as a silver eight-pointed star flared bright on her brow. “Oh, you misunderstand. I’ve already stopped it. I just chose this time and space to confront you. Run along now Thanos, Space has agreed to send you to your retreat and there you will find the Infinity have abandoned you. Think on the prices you paid for nothing.”

The young girl at the woman’s side looked up at her with hope. “Is it over?”

The woman smiled gently back at her. “Yes.”

Thanos snarled once more as he felt himself thrown out of the realm of Soul and then again as he was ripped away from the gauntlet and through space. Pain ripped through the now gaping wound on his chest as he landed on unforgiving ground with a harsh crunch. He gasped and blinked warily as he took in the scene before him of abundant life and a rising sun. His dreamed of garden with his task left unfinished and every price already paid. His very soul ached as he tried to comprehend just where he had misjudged.

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Version 2.1 – Gamora

She was alone again.

Just as she had been time and time again ever since that horrible day years ago. She had tried to break out of the cage he had built up around her. The cage spun by pretty words of empty praise, balance, and promises trapping her into a twisted role of the perfect daughter. She hated it. Hated that he had given her everything and taken everything just as easily. He had used her again, and again, and again.

She had dared to try to slip through the gilded bars and he had slammed them shut around her. Permanently.

She stared at the lonely eight-pillar gate that had been such a potent memory of her childhood. Memories of precious traditions, things lost, gained, and the day everything had been changed. Not once had she been allowed to revisit the world of her birth since that day, but she had never truly forgotten.

She looked down at the scars scattered across her arms and could even now feel the dull ache of many more across her body and wondered if this was truly the physical manifestation of her very soul.

Scars she never remembered physically earning but felt viscerally real all the same. All the pain she had suffered as she tried to reach out over and over only to be punished for every connection she tried to establish that wasn’t with her so-called father.

Her so-called siblings, his other children, anyone she showed any favor to, was punished in turn. Nebula most of all for the bond they had both clung to in the end.

She had tried to use Peter and the others as a buffer, just another layer of protection, but she couldn’t help herself, and so he had used them against her too.  Reality twisted just that little bit more so things worked into his plan, his great mission, only to cut her very soul in the process.

That he had finally just thrown her away entirely, hadn’t even been that much of a shock.

“Hello Gamora.”

Gamora whirled tense and ready. She had no weapons here, nothing to defend herself from further attack, but no matter, she had spent almost entire life turning her entire body into a weapon. However, the sight that greeted her had her relaxing as a sense a peace and serenity spread out around her.

The human looking woman before her was petite, shorter than her by several units and had long silvery hair spilling down from twin buns on either side of her head. Pale skin that seemed to have a faint shimmer of its own surrounded her crystalline blue eyes. On her brow was a silvery eight-pointed starburst. She was clad in some sort of white and silver uniform that clung to her form, yet seemed to offer little in the way of protection from what Gamora could see. Her legs were bare save for the almost dainty shoes on her feet.

“Who are you?”

The woman smiled gently, “In this form, I am mostly commonly called Cosmos, but you can call me Serenity.”

Gamora’s eyes widened in surprise. There had been whispers of rumors of both names while she was on her quest for the Soul Stone’s location, but she had ignored them as impossible to be true. There was no way a single person could be the stone or that the stone that represented the entire universe’s connection to life and soul could possibly be bound to a single guardian. The very idea of it had seemed ludicrous… and yet here she stood. Gamora knew she had somehow become a part of the stone and now this ethereal and pixie like woman stood before her. Tears welled up before she could stop them.

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

“All life has freedom of choice Gamora, even if the choice made is the taking of a life. Until he picked up that piece of Soul and revealed himself in full, I had no power to act.”

Gamora stared at her. Did this mean what she thought it meant? “And now?”

“He does not understand what Soul is. If he tries to complete his goal with, all of Infinity will stop him.”

Gamora felt the tears slip down her cheeks unbidden. The nightmare was going to end. “What will that mean for the rest of us?”

The woman called Serenity just smiled, “I will set things to right as much as I am able to. You will see your chosen family again.” Gamora collapsed to her knees and the woman caught her, the sobs bursting out. “I know it hurts.”

“No—not pain—relief.” Gamora gasped out around her sobs. “To know that he will finally be stopped, his goals unrealized. You can’t understand—”

Serenity stroked her hair back from her face and then Gamora realized she could. She was the embodiment of the Soul Stone and the Guardian of Life. What Thanos had been doing for decade had to have been causing her pain as he willingly went from planet to planet destroying life. “I’m sorry for my part in his atrocities.”

“You chose a new path when one was available to you.” Serenity said gently. They kneeled there together offering each other comfort and healing. “It’s time, will you allow me to shield you from this?”

Gamora considered. “I want to see it finished.”

Serenity nodded. “Very well, but I will not let him hurt you again.”

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to be continued…. maybe.