The Valiant (The Seventh Avenger)

Chapter 70

Bodies

The bodies were everywhere. Asgardians laid either near death or has embraced it into their arms. Flames and pieces of the ship surround me. The flames bringing flickering shadows onto the bodies and people, their eyes burning holes into my skull that may never heal. Men, Women, and children lay on the ground, and it's all my fault. If I had only tried harder to protect them, if I had only tried harder to defend the ship, if I had only forced them to go with Valkyrie. They would still be alive.

All their empty eyes bring me back to what Wanda had shown me, and somehow I can't tell or remember the difference between of the two. Both are my fault, both involve people getting killed, and both involve the ones I love getting hurt.

Heimdall collapses a few feet beside me as blood runs into his eye. Bruce is somewhere in the ship, most likely injured. Thor lays on the grown, gasping for breath from the wind being beaten out of him. And Evan. Evan lays near the edge of the bodies knocked out cold. A large gash sliced from his hairline down to his jaw. Loki stands silently at the front, for once silent with no words to say. His eyes dart back and forth to the groans of the people who once were his and to those who now are in Valhalla.

My chest heaves from the soreness coursing through my limbs and breast. Purple singe covers my arms and hair from the stone resting on the gauntlet Thanos has on his left hand. My body aches from the stone that shares its abilities with me. The one stone that had originally been mine if my brothers and sisters had survived. I was originally the keeper of the power stone before being the keeper of time and mind stones, and yet that stone was the one used to stop me.

"Hear me and rejoice," the creature with the elongated face, sunken eyes and wide lips strolls through the bodies. The rest of the children of Thanos follow behind, killing those still grasping on to life, I watch with tears streaming down my face and Thor beside the fallen throne. Every time I move, a new pain courses its way throughout me. A groan escapes from the crowd followed by the sound of a sword going through flesh causes me to shake.

"You have the privilege of being saved by the great Titan," the monster continues. His hands grasping onto each other peek out of the cloak hanging around his body. "You may think this is suffering. No, this is salvation."

With the flames and light radiating off the stars, the children of Thanos look even more demonizing than they did a year ago on that ship. The large alien with scaly skin and bone-ridged head carried a large hammer, just by looking at his figure and his eyes a chill will shoot up your back. Another has a similar appearance to a dark hooded elf and a large double-ended spear grasped in his hands. Blood from its last victim trickles down it and onto his hands. Then there is the woman who holds onto an electric staff, crackling and charged ready for its next fight. Horns sprout out of her head and her gold eyes say all of the things she has done while being with Thanos.

"Universal scales tip towards balance because of your sacrifice," the elongated faced monster stops and looks down at a woman, his face softens. "Smile," he coos as the woman takes her last breath, "For even in death, you have become Children of Thanos."

My mind reaches out to the Asgardians but comes back empty. They're all dead. Silence fills the ship as I reach out to Evan. My heart thumps in my chest when I don't find him. No, no, no gods please no. I push and push, praying to all fathers that this is just my ability and not him. That he's not dead. Fear swoops its way throughout my body like a thunderstorm rolling in. I push my abilities to the limit and find something. Him. He's just coming back into consciousness but he's okay, he's alive.

"I know what it's like to lose," Thanos begins a few feet away from me. He gazes out into the void of space like a kingdom awaiting deliverance. He slowly turns around and looks at defiant Loki. "To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail nonetheless."