Location: Nix Vestra - Outer Rim of Known Space
Simultaneous to Events on Earth
Thanos stood at the edge of the precipice, looking down at the valley below where the population of Nix Vestra huddled in their cities, unaware that their world was about to change forever.
The culling would be swift. Painless. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
He raised the gauntlet—still incomplete, but powerful enough for this task—and began to channel energy into the stones he possessed. Power and Space hummed in harmony, ready to execute his will.
"You're going to kill half of them," a voice said—not in his ears, but directly in his mind. The tone was curious, almost childlike, but with an undertone of something ancient. "Why?"
Thanos didn't turn. He'd faced telepaths before. "Balance. This world consumes more resources than it can sustain. Left unchecked, they will destroy themselves. I offer them mercy."
"That's not mercy," the voice said, and now there was something else in it—something that sounded like sadness. "That's just death with excuses."
"Show yourself," Thanos commanded, finally turning.
What he saw defied immediate categorization.
It floated in the air before him, small—barely the size of a child—but radiating power that made even his considerable awareness take notice. The creature was pink, impossibly so, as if it had been painted in shades of dawn light and bubble gum. Its form was feline in a way, but also not—somewhere between a cat and something far more primal. A long, thin tail swayed behind it, and large blue eyes regarded him with an intelligence that was unsettling in its depth.
The creature looked young—like something newly born—but those eyes... those eyes had seen the birth and death of worlds.
"What are you?" Thanos asked, his grip tightening on the gauntlet.
"I'm curious," the creature responded telepathically, drifting closer. "I'm new to this place. This dimension. Everything here feels different. Sharper. Louder." It spun lazily in the air, tail making a slow spiral. "And the first person I meet wants to kill billions. That seems like a bad start."
"I seek to bring balance to a universe teetering on the edge of collapse," Thanos replied. "You are young. You do not understand."
The creature stopped spinning. Those blue eyes focused on him with laser precision, and suddenly Thanos felt something he rarely experienced: unease.
"I understand life," the creature said, and its mental voice had gone cold. "I understand creation. I understand the fundamental code that connects every living thing in existence. And you want to unmake half of it because you think you know better."
"I do know better," Thanos growled. "I have studied countless civilizations. I have watched worlds tear themselves apart. This is the only way."
"No," the creature said simply. "It's not."
Thanos raised the gauntlet. "Then you will not stop me."
The creature tilted its head. "Actually... I think I will."
What happened next occurred faster than Thanos could track. The creature blurred—no, it didn't blur, it transformed, its shape shifting into something else entirely, something with crackling energy and impossible speed. It struck him in the chest with force that shouldn't have been possible from something so small, sending him skidding backward across the cliff face.
Thanos roared and unleashed the Power Stone's energy. Purple devastation tore through the air where the creature had been, but it was already gone, reappearing behind him. He felt the mental pressure intensify, not attacking his mind but surrounding it, like being wrapped in layers of consciousness that weren't his own.
"You're strong," the creature's voice said, now coming from everywhere and nowhere. "But strength isn't the same as being right."
He spun, using the Space Stone to bend reality around him, creating barriers and traps. The creature danced through them like they weren't there, its form shifting again—now resembling the very energy he was throwing at it, then shifting to something else, something that looked like wind and light and life itself.
"Impossible," Thanos breathed. Nothing should be able to adapt that quickly. Nothing should be able to counter the Infinity Stones themselves.
The creature reformed in front of him, back to its original pink form, but now there was something like disappointment in its expression.
"You have all this power," it said, gesturing to the gauntlet. "You could create. You could heal. You could help. But you choose to destroy. That makes me sad."
"Your sadness means nothing," Thanos said, gathering every ounce of power he could muster.
"Maybe not," the creature agreed. "But this might."
It raised one small paw, and Thanos felt reality twist. Not break—not like the stones broke reality—but bend in a way that felt fundamentally wrong. The creature wasn't using force or energy. It was doing something else. Something that felt like it was reaching into the basic code of existence and simply... rewriting it.
The air around Thanos became thick, heavy. His limbs grew sluggish. The stones in the gauntlet flickered, their connection to him disrupted not by power but by something that felt like cosmic static.
"Sleep," the creature said gently. "When you wake up, maybe think about what you really want. Balance doesn't come from death. It comes from growth."
Thanos tried to fight it. He was the Mad Titan. He had conquered worlds. He had claimed Infinity Stones. He would not fall to some—
Darkness took him.
When he woke—hours later, or perhaps days, time felt strange—the creature was gone. The valley below was untouched. His gauntlet still sat on his hand, the stones still functional, but he could feel it: a subtle change in his armor's molecular structure. A message, written in a language he somehow understood instinctively:
"Every life matters. Even yours. Don't waste your chance."
Thanos sat in the dust of the cliff face, staring at the words, feeling something he hadn't felt in a very long time.
Doubt.
Somewhere in the void of space, the small pink creature tumbled through the stars, giggling with delight at the sensation of moving through this new dimension. There was so much to see! So much to explore!
And if it occasionally had to stop would-be world-killers along the way, well, that just made the journey more interesting.