"Hmmm," Luke said, looking around at everyone settled into the house. Selene, Jill, Alice, Wanda, Natasha, Jean, Clarice, Esdeath, Tauriel, another Wanda.
When did it become this many?
Most of them were here because they loved him. Jean and Clarice would not have stayed otherwise. As for Tauriel, he still could not read that elf at all.
Then he felt it.
Something was wrong.
He looked down at his hand and saw his fingers breaking apart into dust, the particles rising slowly into the air before vanishing. For one sharp second his mind stalled, refusing to accept what his eyes were showing him.
Then Selene began to disappear.
Not falling, not dying, simply coming apart where she stood as ash peeled from her body and scattered upward. Jill followed. Then Alice. Then Wanda. Then Natasha. Then all of them, one after another, dissolving in silence so quickly the room emptied before he could even reach the nearest one.
There were no last words.
They were there, and then they were gone.
Luke stood in the middle of a house that no longer felt real.
Then the house itself started to crumble into dust. Walls thinned into particles. The floor beneath him unraveled. Furniture, light, air, everything lost shape and drifted away.
Then the Earth was gone.
Then the sky.
Then everything.
Luke stood alone in empty space.
He looked at his hand, still turning to ash.
Then he screamed.
It wasn't a cry for help and it wasn't pleading. It came out as a violent, throat-tearing roar that shook the emptiness around him, the kind of scream dragged out of someone when pain was too large for words and rage was the only thing left to carry it.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
The sound ripped from him again, harsher this time, raw enough to feel like it was tearing his chest open from the inside.
Void energy detonated from his body in every direction.
Dark waves burst outward across space, warping everything they touched. Planets shattered into fragments before being erased completely. Moons split apart. Stars bent inward and collapsed as the force rolled through the system without slowing.
The solar system vanished in the expanding surge.
Then a singularity formed at his center, black and absolute, growing larger with every second. It devoured light, matter, distance, and the ruins of everything around him, pulling all of existence inward because there was nothing left he wanted to spare.
In the distance, a figure in white armor drifted through the empty ruin of space, watching everything unfold.
Six gems were set into the armor, each one glowing with its own color against the pale metal.
Superior Tony Stark observed the destruction in silence as planets vanished and the newborn singularity consumed what remained.
"It seems even Infinity Gems can do little to him," he said.
The next second, something hit him.
There was no warning.
No time to react.
A punch crashed into the armor and launched him backward so hard the shockwave tore through the surrounding void. Metal split, systems failed, and the glow of the gems flickered violently.
Luke was suddenly in front of him.
Eyes burning with fury.
His face held nothing human now except shape.
"What the fuck did you do?" he asked.
The words came out low and sharp, more dangerous than a scream.
His hand shot forward, seized the armor, and tore it apart with brute force. Plates of white metal ripped away like paper, the frame twisted open, circuits and weapon systems scattering into space.
But there was no body inside.
Only an empty shell.
A decoy.
For one instant, even through the rage, Luke understood what that meant.
His gaze dropped to the six gems still embedded in the ruined armor.
That was how it happened.
Infinity Stones.
If they had erased everything, then they could bring everything back.
He ripped the stones free and held them in his hand, power already gathering in instinctive anticipation—
Then stopped.
Nothing.
Luke's jaw tightened.
"These things are useless."
He could sense it clearly now.
The gems were dead in this reality, drained of all function, nothing more than colored fragments set into broken metal.
Luke stared at them for only a moment before throwing the useless stones aside. They scattered into the void and vanished into the pull of the singularity.
But there was still another way.
If these gems no longer worked, then he would find the versions that did.
Power Stone.
A destination formed in his mind.
Luke moved.
Space folded around him, and the next instant he landed on the surface of a distant planet beneath a purple sky, ruined stone structures stretching across barren ground. Energy from the Power Stone pulsed nearby, wild and unmistakable.
Then he saw him.
A small figure dancing badly across the ancient platform, completely alone, holding the orb like he had forgotten the rest of the universe existed.
Peter Quill.
Ugly jacket.
Zero awareness.
The music from his headset was loud enough to hear from where Luke stood.
Quill spun, pointed dramatically at nothing, then slid across the stone floor with absolute confidence no one had asked for.
Luke watched for half a second.
Then walked forward and punched him straight in the face.
Quill dropped instantly.
The music kept playing.
Luke stepped over him, picked up the Orb, crushed the casing in one hand, and took the glowing purple gem from within.
The Power Stone now rested in his palm, real energy surging through it.
*****
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