9 || failure

"I WOULD RATHER DIE THAN JOIN YOU."
- Wakanda, April 2018 -

The echo of the gunshot rang in Alison's ears, her eyes opening to see Absinthe, her face forever frozen in shock as the Asgardian's body fell to the ground.

She stared for a moment, eyes in disbelief at the sight before her. Absinthe was dead on the ground forever, her body still, no breaths coming from her. Blood rushing in her ears and heart pounding, Alison came to a startling realization.

It was over.

She had finally won.

So why didn't it feel like she had?

Taking another moment to process it all, Alison bent down to the woman, feeling something gross wash over her as the lifeless eyes of Absinthe stared back at her. Running her hands over the villain's face, she closed the dead eyelids of the woman, letting her rest.

Squatting up from the ground, Alison let out another shuddering breath, trying to clear her mind of all of the jitters that were running through his brain. Clicking the safety on the gun again, she tucked the gun away on a slot on her belt that formed from the nanites, running a hand through her braided hair.

"Skylar, I got one Absinthe. She's gone. There's a bullet through her head." She swallowed, trying to resist looking down again at her first person that Alison had killed by her own hand. The gun was still in her right hand, shaking with the nervous energy that was coursing through her.

She could feel her nerves on edge, something screaming that there was something not right. Something that felt like the whole world was off.

Was it just the fact that she had just killed someone?

It took a moment for Alison to realize that everything was eerily silent. The sounds of the battlefield has quieted down to a silent hush, the roar of gunfire and aliens running amuck no longer screaming in her ears.

Pressing her ear again, almost ready to speak again, she felt nothing in her ear. Right. The black device was no longer seen, somewhere lost in the foliage that was underneath Alison's feet.

"Well, that explains some things." Alison muttered, sighing as she attempted to bend down to the ground to try and find it. But before she could even try, she heard hear a loud cry- no, a sob of horror behind her.

Turning around to see what the hell was happening, she saw Wanda, hunched over an explosion, Vision no longer there.

And in front of her was Thanos.

Seeing the man who had haunted her dreams grip Wanda's head in his fingers, Alison saw that the titan let go of her, gripping the gauntlet. There was a look of happiness in the titan's eyes, which chilled Alison. He looked like he had won, but-

And out of the corner of her eye, the teenager could see Thanos hold up the gauntlet, a green time stone glimmering in his hand as he started to talk about loss. Realizing what was going on, not knowing that the mad titan hadn't seen her just yet, Alison yelled out a scream of shock. "Wanda!" She yelled out, trying to notify her friend of what was about to occur, unintentionally drawing the attention of Thanos.

"You." The titan snarled, seeing Alison, a threat he thought had been eliminated years ago standing right in front of her. "You should not be alive."

"Shit." Alison whispered, finding eye contact with the purple titan in front of her. He was a huge, lumbering figure, cowering over by feet.

Wanda's eyes fell upon her as well, the girl's eyes begging for her to not to stop and let time run its course. "Alison, run! Get away-" She was interrupted by Thanos knocking her out cold, her body thudding against the ground.

A strangled scream stuck in her throat, Alison didn't even waste any time before starting to run away from the whole scene. She had to reverse this. She had to leave, and right now.

Ali streaked back onto the open green field, the girl pushing her boundaries, determined to try and reverse it all. She was running and running and running, not stopping for anything. There was an almost portal opening to the dimension again, the girl sprinting through it.

And, in an instant she was back.

The endless void of a place that Alison had started to refer to as the Lightspeed Time Tunnel. Alison foolishly assumed she was safe, her eyes landing on the memory of her in Avengers Facility, knocked out after her "procedure." She had to go back to the same place that she had last time, and the time before that, and the time before- well, Alison knew that well by now.

There was no time to rest, not even after fighting Absinthe and killing the woman.

Reaching out her hand to the memory, the door to the past started to open at the opposite end of the teal-colored tunnel, slowly spiraling open, until it shut itself, a green magic forcing it down. Alison looked at it, confused as to what was going on, her hand still placed on the memory.

"What the-"

"When my daughter told me that she had killed you two years ago, I believed her." A voice spoke from behind the confused hero, Alison turning around to see the massive figure of the mad titan Thanos in the spot where she had previously seen Charles and Doctor Strange sit in. His hand wearing the gauntlet was reached out, his fist closed with the same green magic that the portal had been closed with wrapped around it. "Now I realize that I was a fool to trust her."

"You should be proud of her." Alison fired back, trying to keep her courage up in front of the formidable titan. "Because currently, because of her foolishness in not heeding my words to stay the hell away from me, she has a gunshot in her head. She's not coming back."

Chuckling, the Titan let go of his fist, the green magic around him slowly pulsing out, causing the memories inside to stop playing. "I'm surprised you had that in you."

"Yeah, well, I'm tougher than I look." Alison fired back, trying to keep herself calm as Thanos stared her down. She had seen what he had done to the planet that kept the first stone in her dreams- and how the people standing his way ended up.

And now? She was the only thing in the way of his last stone.

Thanos laughed, seeming almost amused by the prospect of a human believing that they were stronger than him. "You mere mortals honestly believe that you can defeat me. I think it's rather charming."

"Yeah, well, you can't exactly massacre a planet like Earth and expect to get away with it." Alison scoffed, gulping down a nervous breath, trying to keep her eye contact and maintain a brave face. "The heroes that defend it aren't just some nameless people. They're the Avengers."

"You Avengers are fools, much like my daughter Aronora." Thanos sneered, tired of hearing the rousing speech from the eighteen year old girl. "She should have killed you first, and then we wouldn't have to deal with these consequences."

"What consequences?"

"The consequences of you meddling in my business. You could've been spared a painful death if you had just stayed out of this foolish Avengers business. You know in your heart that you never would've started the stupid heroics act if you weren't dragged along with it." Thanos looked down at the girl with almost disgust, slowly lumbering towards her, Alison frozen in place, unsure of what to do.

"I wouldn't change a thing." Alison disagreed, shaking her head. "Even if it gets me killed in the process, the fact that I'm saving lives is better than anything I could've done before, even if some drunken mistakes caused it in the first place. And you can't change that."

Thanos sighed, finally coming within inches of the girl. That same stubbornness that he had seen in Gamora was prominent with her too. And with that stubbornness came the inability to understand his plan, and another wasted opportunity. "Your ignorance to the way the world truly is and your ability to be so stubborn is charming. But I'm afraid you spoke too soon. I would've loved to see you stand by my side after I succeed. But it's obvious you'd never bow to that. So now- " The titan reached out, grabbing the girl by the throat, rather reminiscent of how he had killed a particular demigod to obtain the tesseract, he snarled at her. "You'll have to die before the rest."

The bright blue glow of the space stone whirled in cohesion with the green of the time stone, the stones portaling Thanos and Alison (who was still being choked out by the mad titan) back to the Wakandan woods, right where Thanos had last stood. Alison was thrashing in his grasp, whacking at the purple skin gripping her throat, trying to escape the chokehold.

Grasping for her life, her breaths unsteady, gasps for air coming from her mouth, Alison tried hitting the huge titan's hands away to no avail. Thanos looked almost impressed that the girl had held on for so long, and right before he was ready to take her life, his eyes glinted with almost amusement. "The lottery of luck will not be won by you. The universe will not spare you, and neither will I."

His grip still firm around her, Thanos squeezed tighter, Alison struggling to come up for air. Wheezing with every breath she took, Alison just closed her eyes, trying to remember the best moments of her life while she was sure that she was going to die.

Laughing with Charles, splayed out on the sidewalk, clutching their sides as their legs cramped from racing all the way back to their house from the comic book store. The bright blue summer sky shining down upon them as they forgot everything that had happened just a year before, the two of them just kids.

Running through a random street with Peter after a patrol, both of them soaked to the bone. It was in the middle of September, the storm rather unusual for the time of year. The rain pouring down, Peter whirled Alison to a rooftop, where they attempted to recreate Troy and Gabriella from High School Musical dancing on the roof. He asked her to Homecoming that day, and that was the first day that they had kissed in such a way that would make Alison never forget it.

Her eighteenth birthday, a night of-

Her memories were cut off abruptly, Alison's eyes opening as she dropped to the ground, her lungs heaving for the air as she tasted dirt in her mouth. Looking up above her, the bright glare of the sun making her squint, she saw the formidable Titan look down upon her.

The time stone was glowing in his hand, almost as if it was telling the purple villain something. It took a few moments for him to speak, Thanos sneering down at the teenager. "Death is too good for you. I realize that now. Perhaps it would be better for them to deal with you themselves. After all, they won't be happy that someone has bent their rules to their will. They will keep you around after the paradise of what I'm trying to accomplish only to make you a slave to their will.."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You'll find out soon enough, Little One." Thanos squeezed her head in his hand, almost cruelly treating her as a father would a daughter. Dropping her head to the ground, he closed his fist again, using some of the stones to wrap vines around Alison's feet, making sure she stayed locked in place while he completed his mission. He lumbered back towards Wanda, clenching the gauntlet shut, the Time Stone glowing green.

Alison, her face hitting the dirt, was so injured and hurt that she could barely move, trying to fill her lungs with more, already feeling the bruises around her neck forming. Barely able to crane her head up, she saw the bright glow of the green stone, and the familiar rush of its power go through everything around her, the world operating in reverse.

Bright yellow light overwhelmed every single one of Alison's senses, the Mind Stone's shattering reversing, the pieces of its destruction slowly reforming. Carnage from everywhere around her slowly whirled towards the center of the battlefield, reforming a vulnerable and broken Vision.

Wanda, stirring from her spot upon the ground, looked up to see Vision being brought back, his stone reformed in his head. Seeing her old love gasp for breath again, she let out a horrified, "No!" before Thanos knocked her again into the ground.

Thanos grabbed Vision in a chokehold ( Alison, who was just realizing she had vines wrapped around her ankles, wondered if he had a preference for the chokehold), easily ripping the stone out of Vision's forehead. The android turned a pale gray when the Mind Stone was ripped out of his forehead, Thanos tossing him to the side carelessly.

The titan, with delicate care, held the stone between two fingers, tentatively placing it inside of the gauntlet's center. With the final click, power roared through his arm, lines of every color racing up his arm. The villain screamed in pain, opening his arms out to try and endure the pain. When the pain subsided, Thanos looked at his arm with a glint of success hidden in his eyes, only for a moment, before he was blasted in the face with lightning.

Thor came down from the heavens, his new axe and all, his eyes blazing with lightning as he beat down the Mad Titan into the dirt, pushing him feet away from Vision. Thanos responded by gathering the power of all the stones, directing them at the god. Aiming his axe at Thanos, Thor threw it at the villain, cutting through the power of all of the infinity stones, hitting him square in the chest.

Alison's chest rose with hope.

A mistake of many, in that moment.

Thor dropped down from the heavens, landing in front of Thanos with a fury that looked almost like he had a vengeance for the villain coursing through his veins. Looking him square in the eyes, Thor muttered words of what he thought were victory. "I told you, you'd die for that." Gripping the back of Thanos' head, Thor pushed his axe, earning a roar of pain from the Mad Titan.

But then Thor paused, trying to savor the last moments of killing one final enemy.

And Thanos' hand rose.

In that moment, Alison knew exactly what was going to happen next.

Her body filling up with dread, Alison knew that there was no way to stop what was coming.

"You should have gone for the head." Thanos barely mustered out, using all of his strength to lift the gauntlet. His fingers pinched together, he let his middle finger rest on his thumb-

And he snapped.

"No!"

The world went white as the screams of horror from Alison echoed through the forest.

<~*~> 

now you know Alison's fate if you looked hard enough

you ready for the emotional rollercoaster about to start?

get aboard the ash and dust angst train, because we're just getting started.

byeeeee

-ash