"Requiem?"
Bant echoed the name.
Just as he was about to ask Red Skull who Requiem was, Brunnhilde, who was standing near the edge of the cliff, shouted out.
"Ben, come look!"
Bant walked over at once and cast his gaze down into the bottomless abyss.
In the circular shrine below, a gaunt, skeletal frame lay collapsed at the center, utterly lifeless.
"Is that Thanos?"
Brunnhilde wasn't entirely sure, but Bant did recognize the figure — it was Thanos without a doubt.
"I never imagined that even cutting off his head on Xandar couldn't kill him," Bant said, surprised.
"So it looks like Requiem sacrificed Thanos to claim the stone. Could Requiem be Gamora?"
"Your guess is correct, Lord of Sakaar."
Red Skull drifted closer like a wraith.
He had originally been stranded on Vormir due to the power of the Space Stone, imprisoned by the Soul Stone for seventy years, and only recently had he finally been freed.
But because of the Soul Stone's influence, Red Skull had come to know many of the universe's secrets.
"Requiem is Thanos's daughter, Gamora."
"And her goal was to completely annihilate the cosmic tyrant, Thanos."
After that brief explanation, neither Bant nor Brunnhilde dwelled on the matter any further.
Bant had failed to kill Thanos on Xandar, which proved that Death had rejected Thanos's soul. As a result, it was extremely difficult to kill him through purely physical force. Sacrificing his soul to the Soul Stone was indeed an effective workaround to bypass Death.
After all, at this moment, Thanos truly had lost all signs of life.
"If you'll excuse me, I shall take my leave," Red Skull said, his voice calm and detached.
He knew that HYDRA on Earth had been almost completely wiped out by Bant. But Red Skull had no intention of seeking revenge for HYDRA.
Wasn't that just asking to die?
He'd been trapped for seventy years and had barely managed to escape — why waste that freedom on anything foolish?
Bant, for his part, had little interest in Red Skull either.
HYDRA was gone; what could Red Skull possibly do now?
Besides, Peter's parents' deaths had nothing to do with Red Skull — the timelines were far too far apart.
So Bant simply waved his hand, dismissing Red Skull to leave on his own.
Brunnhilde looked at the gruesome sight of Thanos's corpse, a trace of melancholy stirring in her heart.
The mighty cosmic tyrant of days past had now met such a miserable end — killed by his own daughter, his body left to rot in the wilderness, his soul with no resting place.
But of course, she felt no sympathy for Thanos.
After a moment of silence, Brunnhilde asked, "What about the Soul Stone?"
What she meant was: should they continue to track the Soul Stone and snatch it back from Gamora's hands?
The Infinity Stones were a serious matter. Even though Bant didn't place enormous value on them, he had to admit that, at this stage, they were critically important.
Their energy was nearly unmatched within the universe.
"The universe is vast; tracking Gamora's whereabouts won't be easy," Bant said. "Let's have Loki keep constant watch for the Soul Stone's energy fluctuations."
Earlier, after the Soul Stone had released a single powerful burst of gamma energy, it had gone completely silent again.
Otherwise, Bant wouldn't have made a special trip to Vormir to search for clues.
Now, aside from waiting patiently, he had no better option.
"Let's head back to the Plumbers' headquarters first," Bant said.
In the next instant, a blue energy expanded behind him — a portal opened by the Space Stone.
Bant and Brunnhilde returned directly to Sakaar.
The moment they arrived back on Sakaar, they found Nebula sitting alone in the office.
It was a busy time for both Sakaar and the Plumbers. Korg, as a native of Sakaar, was the best representative of the planet's spirit, so Bant had sent him to engage with other civilizations. Loki, ever the silver-tongued diplomat, had gone along as well.
As a result, many of Sakaar's administrative tasks had been transferred onto Nebula's shoulders.
Nebula wasn't yet a Magister, and her strength wouldn't allow her to carry out a Magister's duties, but her rank as a Plumber was very high.
She had been trained by Thanos; her knowledge and experience were broad, and she could handle most affairs without much difficulty.
Seeing Bant and Brunnhilde return, Nebula quickly rose to her feet and asked respectfully,
"Lord Magister, what's the situation with the Soul Stone?"
"The one who took the Soul Stone is Gamora. She sacrificed Thanos."
Bant didn't hide anything from her. He told her the information outright and filled in many details, explaining why Thanos couldn't die and why Gamora had sacrificed him to obtain the stone.
After hearing all this, Nebula's face filled with guilt.
"I'm sorry. If I hadn't begged you to spare Gamora..."
"Don't think like that," Bant reassured her. "Even if Gamora took the Soul Stone, she's no threat to us. She's not Thanos; she's not going to wipe out half of all life in the universe."
"I think that now that she has the stone, far from using it, she's probably going to disappear into hiding with it. That's actually a good thing for the peace of the universe."
Hearing this, Nebula nodded in agreement.
But there were some things Bant didn't say out loud.
In his view, Gamora taking the Soul Stone really was a good thing.
Because without Gamora, Bant would have faced the greatest challenge of all: how to actually remove the Soul Stone from Vormir.
Now, even though the Soul Stone wasn't in his hands, the universe was, after all, round.
The ever-unfolding timeline, and the enemies that would inevitably appear in the future, would all conspire invisibly to bring the stones together.
Bant believed that in the end, all the stones would still return to his possession.
Though, to be honest, he didn't have much use for them anyway.
"I might as well continue studying the Omnitrix," he thought.
He went back to his laboratory in the Plumbers' headquarters.
Inside the lab, a holographic projection had fully analyzed and rendered the Omnitrix's structure. Truthfully, if he wanted to, he could replicate the Omnitrix completely within a few days.
But there was no point.
The total amount of Nova Force was fixed. Even if he built ten thousand Omnitrixes, there would only be that same finite amount of energy to go around.
And as far as Bant was concerned, Nova Force itself was frankly a bit underwhelming.
After all, even the most powerful Centurion in the Nova Corps was, at best, no more than a super-soldier.
If all the Nova Force were pooled together and concentrated into a single person, that might be something worth looking at.
So, Bant started toying with a new idea.
Instead of using Nova Force, he could substitute another type of energy.
"The Nova Force can be returned to Xandar."
Xandar was already essentially under the Plumbers' rule anyway. The Nova Corps could be reorganized as the Nova Corps under the Plumbers' banner, and its members could be selected from a batch of recruits on Sakaar.
Bant mulled it over.
That way, the Nova Corps would still appear to be protecting Xandar, but in reality, it would be fully controlled by the Plumbers — essentially becoming a garrison of Sakaarian soldiers stationed on Xandar.
As for the new Omnitrix he was now researching, Bant had no intention of splitting off a share of that meager Nova Force.
He had another idea.
— Mana.
At present, Mana was an energy unique to Bant alone.
The only catch was that he hadn't yet awakened it.
Mana had tremendous potential.
Powerful Mana could even suppress the X-Men to a certain extent. Of course, if the X-Men reached a consensus, then whether it was Mana or the Phoenix Force, nothing would help.
Back when he was on Earth, the Ancient One had wanted to trick Bant into becoming the Sorcerer Supreme precisely because she had her eye on the formidable power of Mana.
In the Ancient One's view, if Mana could be developed, then sorcerers would never again need to borrow magical power from dimensional lords to cast their spells.
Because Mana itself possessed magical properties.
And through the Mana that sorcerers fed back to him, Bant would gradually undergo a metamorphosis, ascending to become a new dimensional lord himself.
When that day came, who would dare to covet the dimension of Earth?
Dormammu?
Let him come — they'd beat the shit right out of him!
It was just that, at the time, Bant had no interest in becoming the Sorcerer Supreme, so he let the matter drop.
But now, if Mana could be combined with the Omnitrix, on one hand it would bolster the strength of the Plumbers, and on the other, Bant's own power would also increase.
The only problem was that once Bant became a dimensional lord, his physical form would undergo a transformation.
At that point, Earth might not be able to contain him for extended periods.
Still, that wasn't something to worry about too much. To reach such a level of power would take, at the very least, a thousand or even ten thousand years — if it was possible at all.
"Looks like I'll need to find some time to go see the Ancient One," Bant thought.
He added the task to his agenda.
Then he set about building the Omnitrix first.
Of course, Bant didn't plan to keep the name Omnitrix.
"Since I've decided to use Mana as the energy source, let's call it Regidomon."
In the universe of Ben 10, Regidomon was a dimension brimming with Mana energy. So naming the new Omnitrix 'Regidomon' actually made perfect sense.
A few days later, the device named Regidomon was fully completed.
At the same time, Brunnhilde had assembled a group of Plumbers, intending to train them into Nova-Plumbers.
As for Rocket and Groot, they quickly grew bored with life on Sakaar.
They had more or less cobbled together a team with Star-Lord and planned to leave Sakaar and return to the cosmic frontier.
The Guardians of the Galaxy were formed once again. But this time, they carried the banner of the Plumbers, functioning as a special Plumber squad, and they had renamed themselves the Galactic Volunteer Corps.
Earth.
California.
Tony had been staying here this whole time, far from New York, conducting his research alone.
On one hand, New York was still being rebuilt, and Avengers Tower had been blown to pieces. On the other hand, at this point, he and the Avengers were together in name only.
Having endured a New York battle far more brutal than the one in the movies, Tony had been consumed by one thought: how to prevent the next crisis.
How to protect Earth when the next enemy arrived.
The Ultron Global Defense Initiative!
That was his vision.
Tony took a deep breath.
He stared at the data J.A.R.V.I.S. had extrapolated and bit his lip hard.
It was tough!
Using the power of the network to surveil the entire world, to arm the whole world with robots — it was incredibly difficult.
But the most critical hurdle was artificial intelligence.
J.A.R.V.I.S.'s processing power was no longer enough to sustain a worldwide network of Iron Legionnaires capable of analyzing countless different scenarios. Tony needed a more advanced AI!
"If only Ben were here to work on this with me."
Tony wiped his face, trying to sweep away the exhaustion, but all he managed to do was smear a handful of grease onto his hand.
He had no idea how many hours he'd been working. During this stretch of time, let alone rest, he had barely eaten or washed his face.
The fatigue was crushing him.
Yet the moment he thought of Ben, the resentment inside him only deepened.
He slapped his own cheeks hard.
"What are you saying?!"
"You're the great and famous genius Stark! Do you really think you can't create Ultron without Ben? Or do you think that kid is smarter than you?!"
He first mocked himself, then shifted gears, his face showing a weary expression as he defended himself: "I was just thinking that two people working on it would be faster. Ideas need to collide. He's one of the few people whose intelligence I actually respect."
Immediately after, he shook his head with a contemptuous sneer:
"Oh, please. That kid is unreliable!"
As he said it, the memory of Ben not being on Earth at that critical moment surfaced in his mind once again.
The lab fell silent.
J.A.R.V.I.S. hesitated for a moment, then still offered a reminder: "Sir, talking to oneself can be a sign of mental health issues. I believe you may need a psychologist, in case your anxiety disorder is followed by symptoms of schizophrenia."
"Shut up!"
Tony hurled a spare part at the speaker.
But that did nothing to J.A.R.V.I.S.
"As you know, I am merely a computer. Additionally, Steve Rogers and the others have returned from space. According to Avengers intelligence, the Chitauri army that attacked Earth and Thanos himself have been eliminated. I believe you could take a break for a while."
"A break?"
Tony shook his head.
"The purple raisin Thanos is dead, but who knows if some tentacled freak or an old hag will show up and cause trouble next?"
He sighed.
Then he paused and asked another question.
"Steve is back. What about Ben Parker?"
Ben had indeed returned to Earth as well.
He just arrived about a week later than Captain Rogers and the others.
Aunt May and Uncle Ben came by to make sure he wasn't injured, then went right back to their training.
All told, this battle over the Infinity Stones had only lasted about a month or two, and the bulk of that time wasn't even spent fighting, but rather in preparations on Sakaar.
Over these two months of training, Uncle Ben, Aunt May, and the Maximoff twins had gradually become quite capable, and they'd started carrying out small missions in the city.
Originally, Ben had planned to go find the Ancient One the moment he got back to Earth and start developing his Mana.
But the Plumbers still had some matters waiting for him to handle.
Especially the issue with Mary Jane.
On this trip to space, Ben had gone with Felicia.
Mary Jane knew that Ben was Hacker, but she never imagined that her so-called best friend — the one who'd sworn they were on the same team and absolutely wouldn't jump the gun — had actually transformed into the Black Cat!
What happened to sisterhood?!
It was all a lie!
/-\
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