[AN: Better late than never right? Here's thr chappie.]
Steve gritted his teeth.
His broken shield hung from his forearm.
Blood traced down the side of his face.
But he stood.
Again.
Elias was already at his right, lightsaber humming, its glow reflecting in the drifting smoke.
Across from them, Thanos watched in silence.
Then,
The sky behind him began to flash.
The Sanctuary II fired multiple beams toward the ground in rapid succession.
Columns of light struck the battlefield behind the Titan.
Out of them,
An army emerged.
Ranks upon ranks of Outriders.
Chitauri soldiers.
War beasts.
Siege engines.
The Black Order regrouped at Thanos' side
Ebony Maw,
Cull Obsidian,
Corvus Glaive,
Proxima Midnight.
A tidal wave of war assembled in seconds.
Beside Steve and Elias stood what remained of their side,
Thor.
Iron Man.
War Machine.
Ant-Man.
Outnumbered didn't begin to describe it.
Then,
Static crackled through Steve's comm.
A voice.
Familiar.
Clear.
"Cap… can you hear me?"
Steve's breath hitched, recognizing Sam's voice.
"…On your left."
He didn't look left.
He looked behind him.
A golden, circular portal of eldritch energy sparked to life.
From it stepped Black Panther.
Beside him,
Shuri and
Okoye.
Behind them marched the Wakandan army.
No words were exchanged.
None were needed.
Another portal opened.
Then another.
And another.
Across the battlefield, rings of golden light bloomed like sunrise breaking through storm clouds.
From one stepped Spider-Man, wide-eyed but ready.
With him,
Doctor Strange alongside the remaining Guardians of the Galaxy.
The Asgardians arrived through a blazing portal led by Valkyrie.
The sorcerers of Kamar-Taj followed under the steady gaze of Wong.
More.
And more.
An impossible army formed behind Steve Rogers.
Strange glanced sideways at Wong.
"Is that everyone?"
Wong shot him a look.
"What? You wanted more?"
A faint smile ghosted across Elias' face.
At last.
The Wakandan warriors began to chant, their spears striking rhythmically against the earth.
Thor lifted Stormbreaker high.
T'Challa stepped forward.
Steve didn't give a speech.
Didn't need to.
He extended his right hand.
"Avengers!"
Mjolnir rocketed through the air and slammed into his palm.
He held it tightly.
Looked ahead at the Mad Titan and his assembled legions.
Then, softer,
Almost reverent.
"Assemble."
Two kings roared.
Thor's thunder shook the sky.
T'Challa's battle cry echoed across the field.
And then,
They charged.
The greatest battle in history surged forward. Afterall, the stakes was the universe itself.
Elias ignited his blade brighter.
And ran with them.
The battlefield erupted.
Thor's lightning struck first.
A blinding pillar of lightning from the heavens slammed into the front ranks of Thanos' army.
And then it vanished beneath the tidal wave of bodies as Wakandans, sorcerers, Asgardians, and Avengers collided with Outriders and Chitauri in a deafening crash of steel, magic, and plasma fire.
The war had begun in full.
Ant-Man expanded into Giant-Man mid-charge, his massive form swatting aside war beasts.
He stomped hard on a leviathan before it could devour or kill spiderman.
"Mr. Stark!" Peter yelped as Iron Man rocketed in, blasting apart a squad of Outriders before landing beside him.
For half a second—just half—Tony pulled Peter into a quick, relieved embrace before pushing him back into the fight.
"Stay close."
Above and around them, chaos unfolded in every direction.
The only ones missing from this frontline?
Clint.
Bruce.
Rocket.
And the nano-gauntlet.
Also absent,
The captured Nebula from 2014.
That was on this side.
Inside the compound,
Another story unfolded.
The 2014 Gamora and this timeline's Nebula reached the secured chamber.
They freed the restrained version of Nebula.
They tried to reason with her.
Tried to convince her to betray Thanos.
But without the growth she experienced during the Guardians' second adventure,without reconciliation, without healing,
This Nebula was still loyal.
Still broken.
Still conditioned.
Her answer came in the form of a blaster shot.
The sound echoed in the confinement room.
The 2014 Nebula fell.
Shot dead by her future self in self-defense.
Outside,
The clash intensified.
Allies and enemies fell by the second.
Magic shields shattered.
Vibranium spears pierced armor.
Explosions tore craters into the earth.
Elias moved through it like a phantom.
His lightsaber carved arcs of light through enemy ranks.
Blaster bolts deflected instinctively.
Those he couldn't deflect,
He stopped.
Telekinesis froze incoming plasma midair before flinging it back.
He hadn't started a master.
But nearly being vaporized had been an excellent teacher.
Still,
He was human.
Super-soldier strength but still ordinary human.
One misstep and he would die like anyone else.
He just split an armored soldier cleanly in half,
And felt it something near.
Scarlet energy surged not far from him.
There stood Scarlet Witch.
"You took everything from me," she accused Thanos.
"I don't even know who you are," Thanos answered.
"You will."
Then he rose.
Lifted into the air by crimson tendrils of pure chaos energy.
His armor began to tear apart piece by piece.
Metal warped.
Plates shredded.
The Titan roared—not in fear, but in fury.
"Rain fire!"
"But sire, our troops." Squidward reasoned.
"Just do it!"
From above, the Sanctuary II obeyed.
The bombardment returned.
Wong reacted first.
Golden shields formed overhead as sorcerers followed his lead.
But not everyone was fast enough.
Explosions rained indiscriminately.
Allies.
Enemies.
Bodies were thrown aside, lifeless or unconscious.
Wanda's grip faltered as she shielded herself from a blast targeting her position.
The shot struck the ground beside her, the shockwave launched her backward.
Before she could fall, arms caught her.
Her body reacted first without intention.
She clutched tightly, bracing for impact.
But the fall never came.
She opened her eyes and realized she was still in the air.
Her grip tightened instinctively.
Only then did she realize, she was being held.
She looked up.
An unfamiliar face stared back at her.
Calm.
Focused.
"You okay?" Elias asked.
She nodded once.
There was no spark.
No cinematic pause.
No fluttering heartbeat.
To Wanda who was currently a powerful Avenger, she was dangerous herself, and with her emotions currently in chaos from losing Vision, no special feelings have risen from being catched by Elias.
Being caught did not make her feel safe.
Elias descended slowly, boots touching the ground before he set her upright.
Only then did Wanda notice something amiss.
Above them, multiple energy blasts hovered midair.
Frozen.
Suspended.
Elias' hand trembled slightly as he held them all in place with telekinesis.
Then, the bombardment stopped.
The cannons shifted upward.
Firing wildly into the clouds.
A streak of blazing light tore through the sky at impossible speed.
It punched straight through the hull of the Sanctuary II.
Explosions rippled across the warship's surface.
The battlefield paused as heads turned upward.
Captain Marvel had arrived.
Elias exhaled sharply.
The suspended energy blasts trembled above him, unstable and humming with destructive force.
With a single forward thrust of his hand, he sent them flying.
Dozens of plasma detonations streaked upward like inverted meteors and slammed into the already ruptured hull of the Sanctuary II.
The impact chain-reacted through the damage Captain Marvel had inflicted moments earlier.
The warship cracked.
Explosions burst across its spine.
Fire erupted from within its core.
And then, it began to crumble before it could fall completely.
For a single, fragile moment,
Silence.
Every head tilted skyward.
Heroes.
Soldiers.
Aliens.
The massive shadow descended in flames, metal tearing apart midair as it collapsed toward the earth like a dying star.
Have they won? The heroes side asked in their minds.
Then, more explosions.
Not from the sky.
From behind.
From the Avengers Compound, or of what's left of it.
The sound snapped everyone back to reality.
The fight resumed instantly.
Outriders screeched.
Blaster fire resumed.
And from a shattered window of one of the remaining buildings, a figure leapt.
She landed hard on the battlefield, rolling once before rising fluidly.
Proxima Midnight.
She sprinted toward Thanos with urgent strides.
Clint's voice cut through the chaos.
"She got the stones! Stop her!"
That was all it took.
The battlefield shifted.
Converged.
Core fighters broke from their engagements.
Captain America charged first, broken shield still raised, Mjolnir easily help his disengagement.
Iron Man rocketed forward from above.
Black Panther sprinted with explosive speed after releasing a pent up kinetic energy from his armor.
Thor propelled himself ahead, war axe raised.
Others tried to follow, but they were intercepted.
Pinned.
Dragged down by enemy forces determined to stall them.
Amidst the chaos, one man stood oddly still.
Doctor Strange.
He moved slower than the others.
Eyes scanning.
Mind racing.
"Stephen!" Wong called.
No response.
"Stephen!!"
Strange blinked and turned toward him, finally snapping out of it.
"What's wrong?" Wong demanded.
He knew that look. That furrowed brow.
That distant calculation.
It was Strange's expression when something didn't add up.
Strange glanced around again.
Buildings.
The battlefield layout.
The sky.
Then, Elias.
A man wielding a red lightsaber, bisecting enemies with fluid precision beside Wanda, deflecting plasma fire like it was second nature.
Strange frowned.
"Why are some of the buildings intact?" he muttered.
"Where's the flood I'm supposed to stop?"
His gaze sharpened slightly.
"And who is that?"
A beat.
"Did the Star Wars universe just have an incursion with ours?"
Wong followed his line of sight.
He watched as Elias lifted an enemy with telekinesis and flung it into a charging Outrider before turning smoothly to deflect another shot with his lightsaber.
Wong blinked once.
"I have no idea," he admitted honestly.
Strange felt uneasy about this whole thing, although his glimpse in the future didn't provide the whole situation, key events were supposed to happen for the timeline to follow what he decided was the best outcome.
Or was the only outcome where they won.
Those key events were what Strange asked to Wong.
Elias' figure wasn't in any of those events he foresaw happening. Clearly, Elias was the factor that change the timeline.
He nees to talk with him before something worse could happen.
End of Chapter