"Titan!"
"Fuck!"
The sky was choked with yellow sand. The wind howled with hurricane force, whipping the abrasive grit against Light Inksworth's body. It stung like a swarm of angry wasps.
But the weather was the least of his concerns. Standing just five meters away from him was an alien of terrifying proportions. He had bruised, purple skin, a massive, vertically grooved chin, and a hulking, mountain-like physique. He wore intricate blue and gold armor, complete with heavy golden shoulder pauldrons and greaves.
It was the Mad Titan. Thanos.
Light's face completely froze. His limbs went stiff. Even though Thanos was just standing there, the sheer, suffocating pressure radiating from him destroyed any sense of security Light had left.
'Even if the main plot hasn't started yet... even if he doesn't have the Infinity Gauntlet...' Light's mind raced, his heart hammering against his ribs. 'Anyone who knows Marvel knows Thanos!'
Thanos, surprisingly, seemed to be in a talkative mood. Perhaps returning to the ruins of his homeworld and finding a living being had sparked a rare moment of nostalgia.
"The Titan of the past was incredibly beautiful," Thanos said. He didn't step forward, merely spreading his massive hands as if trying to embrace the dusty wind. "It was the most technologically advanced and peace-loving planet in the entire solar system."
Thanos lowered his hands. His deep, abyssal eyes, burning with a scarlet intensity, locked onto Light.
"However, this planet disgusted me. Since they did not possess the concept of 'killing'... it was up to me to introduce it."
Light swallowed hard.
"So, who are you?" Thanos asked, tilting his head slightly, genuine curiosity on his face. "An Inhuman? An Earthling?"
Light's heart was practically beating in his throat. He forced his face to remain expressionless. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
Thanos hadn't projected any overt murderous intent, but the creeping, skin-crawling dread Light felt was proof enough of the Titan's absolute power.
"It seems you are wary of me," Thanos noted calmly. "I am merely curious. You should tell me the process of how an Earthling managed to land on Titan without the use of a warship."
He spoke lightly, but the yellow sand around them seemed to suddenly grow heavy, as if the planet's gravity had just multiplied.
Light remained utterly silent. Whether in the comics or the movies, Thanos was the overlord destined to wipe out half the universe. You couldn't trust a single word that came out of his mouth.
'One of the biggest reasons Thanos hasn't invaded Earth yet to seize the Infinity Stones is because he fears Odin,' Light calculated rapidly. 'The Lord of the Nine Realms might look old and weak, but his power is terrifying. Thanos only moves on Earth after Odin dies. But right now, Thanos is physically in the solar system. Does Heimdall know he's here?'
Regardless of Asgard's cosmic surveillance, Light had to deal with the immediate crisis.
He narrowed his eyes, staring intently at Thanos's bare hands. He wasn't wearing the golden gauntlet. From the outside, Light couldn't see the Mind Stone or any other cosmic artifacts.
'Thank God he didn't bring them.'
Currently, the Anywhere Door was still standing open just a few paces behind Light. Through the pink frame, he could see the safe, familiar interior of Lorna's bedroom. As long as he could dive backward, he could sever the spatial connection. Surely, even if Thanos wasn't afraid of Odin, he wouldn't be able to track a dimensional doorway from an anime System.
Light's brain was working in overdrive, the immense psychological pressure forcing him to weigh every micro-movement.
"An Earthling coming to Titan without a ship... that requires the ability to travel through space," Thanos mused slowly, his face growing indifferent. He was the Supreme Overlord of the Dark Quadrant, a king who rivaled the Shi'ar Empire. No one dared disobey him. No one dared refuse him. No one dared ignore him.
He would take whatever he desired.
Thanos knew the Space Stone was hidden on Earth—left there by Odin himself. But he wasn't in a rush to claim it. Odin was an immortal whose periods of the Odinsleep were growing longer and longer. The old king would die soon enough.
Thanos rolled his thick neck, a sickening crack echoing over the wind. "Earthling, you appear to be traveling. I invite you to come and sit in my home."
He raised a massive hand and pointed toward a gargantuan, looming shadow in the upper atmosphere. His flagship, the Sanctuary.
"No thanks, it's time for dinner. I should be heading back," Light replied sincerely, offering the most perfunctory excuse he could muster. Every muscle in his body was coiled tight as a steel spring, his eyes glued to the Titan.
"It seems my reputation does not reach Earth," Thanos said, his eyelid twitching slightly. "Of course, that is Asgard's protected territory. But tell me... are you truly refusing?"
"The timing is just bad," Light deflected.
"Well, then you must go now." Thanos took a massive, heavy stride forward. The corners of his mouth twitched upward into a terrifying smirk. "No one has ever dared to refuse my invitation."
Light moved. He had to. If he waited for Thanos to close the distance, the sheer gravitational pressure of the Titan's aura would lock him down before he could even reach the Anywhere Door.
'If you don't try, you die!'
Whoosh—!
The wind roared, kicking up a smokescreen of yellow sand. Under the dull, depressing, and murderous sky, Light decided to take the initiative. If he let Thanos dictate the pace, he would sink deeper and deeper into despair.
Light pushed off his back foot, accelerating silently from a walk to a dead sprint. In an instant, his body blurred into a white phantom, employing the sheer speed of his enhanced agility.
Crack!
The sound of breaking the sound barrier echoed behind him. Light crossed the center line between them in a fraction of a second, pulling back his fist, channeling every ounce of his Monstrous Power Level 2.
Thanos's eyes remained utterly calm. He merely stepped forward, his heavy boot crushing the bedrock beneath the sand, and casually threw a punch to meet Light's.
One fist was pale and enveloped in white kinetic force. The other was massive, purple, and swung with the casual ease of swatting a fly. The two vastly disproportionate fists collided in mid-air. For a microsecond, time seemed to stagnate.
In the very next instant, a majestic, apocalyptic shockwave erupted from the point of impact.
RUMBLE!!!
The concussive blast drowned out the howling wind, sounding like muffled thunder. The atmospheric pressure instantly vaporized the surrounding sandstorm, creating a massive, clear vacuum. The bedrock beneath their feet groaned and buckled, splitting open to form a hundred-meter-long, unfathomable chasm.
'This strength!' Light screamed internally.
Light was launched backward like a cannonball, his arm completely numb. He was horrified. He immediately realized that Thanos's base physical strength in reality was vastly superior to his nerfed movie counterpart.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Light skipped across the rocky, sandy terrain like a stone thrown violently across a lake. He rolled over and over, smashing craters into the dirt until he finally ground to a halt.
Thanos, on the other hand, had merely slid back half a step.
'I was completely crushed in raw power,' Light thought, struggling to his feet. 'My Monstrous Power Level 2 is completely insufficient!'
Thankfully, his Toughness Level 4 and Regeneration Level 1 mitigated the worst of the impact damage. He stared at Thanos without blinking, rapidly calculating his remaining options. Raw physical combat was a death sentence.
"Earthling, you are quite durable. You've piqued my interest," Thanos said, slowly stepping forward. He sneered. "It is not too late to accept my invitation."
"Piqued your interest? It's too late to take it back!" Light shouted. He raised his right hand, a brilliantly shining white card pinched between his index and middle fingers.
"Scream! Tremble! Descend... Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"
SKREEEEOOOONNNK!!!
The roar of an apex, mythological behemoth shattered the atmosphere. A massive surge of energy condensed into reality. A pair of colossal wings blotted out the dim sunlight. Standing over a hundred meters tall, the pristine, crystal-like dragon materialized, its deep sapphire eyes radiating an endless, freezing killing intent. Its silver-white scales gleamed like impenetrable armor, its maw lined with row upon row of razor-sharp fangs.
The downdraft from its wings whipped the settled yellow sand back into a frenzy, washing over Thanos like a tidal wave.
Light frowned, his breathing heavy. His wounds were healing, but he knew the dragon wasn't an instant win. This wasn't just the MCU Thanos who struggled against the Hulk. This Titan was a completely different beast.
"Clap. Clap. Clap."
Thanos didn't change his expression. He stood amidst the sandstorm and slowly, mockingly, clapped his hands.
"A dragon? Interesting," Thanos said calmly, completely unfazed by the towering monster. "But this is futile, Earthling. It seems you need to suffer a little before you learn obedience."
Hearing the blatant threat, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon's eyes flared with intense light. The ferocious dragon head lowered, glaring at the Titan condescendingly.
VMMMM—!
White and blue energy particles began to rapidly converge within the dragon's open jaws. The surrounding space literally rippled from the raw power, pushing the yellow sand away in concentric circles. A blinding sphere of light formed between the fangs.
Burst Stream of Destruction!
The dragon unleashed the blast. A terrifying shockwave tore through the air, creating a visible ring of displaced oxygen. A dazzling beam of white-blue light, bright as a localized sun, poured down from the sky.
It engulfed the exact spot where Thanos stood like a falling meteor. The blinding glare washed out the entire landscape, carrying an unstoppable, overwhelming momentum.
RUMBLE!
The energy wave hit the surface like a savage beast, raging outward in a massive, destructive ring. The planet's crust violently shook, layers of rock fracturing and collapsing. When the light faded and the sand settled like a shower of dust, a bottomless, circular crater fifty meters wide had been carved into the ground.
'That output was equivalent to at least three of my Energy Ball Level 3 attacks combined,' Light assessed, slightly surprised by his own summon's raw destructive capability.
"That power is insufficient."
A crimson light suddenly bloomed from the very center of the smoking crater. As Thanos's deep voice echoed out, the red light grew more conspicuous, forming a perfectly spherical, transparent energy shield.
Standing entirely unharmed within the levitating red sphere was the Mad Titan. He looked down at Light coldly.
"The gap between you and me is too vast. Give up."
'Comic-level feats!' Light cursed, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks. 'Damn this fused Marvel Universe!'
Light had genuinely hoped the dragon's ultimate attack would at least singe the Titan. In the movies, taking that much concentrated energy without the Infinity Stones would have drawn blood. But Thanos looked like he had just weathered a light breeze.
"It's my turn," Thanos announced. "Hold your breath. Concentrate. Do not relax for even a fraction of a second, because..."
The red energy shield dissipated. Thanos dropped gently to the ground.
BANG!
A sonic boom exploded directly in Light's ears.
Purple light? A blur? A phantom?
None of the above. Thanos simply vanished out of thin air.
Light was horrified. His enhanced dynamic vision couldn't even track the movement! It was the exact same speed Thanos had used to close the distance earlier, but magnified.
"...the difference in strength will end this battle in an instant."
The second half of Thanos's sentence was whispered directly into Light's ear. Before Light could even raise his arms into a defensive guard, a massive purple hand clamped entirely over his face.
Time seemed to pause. Through the gaps in Thanos's thick fingers, Light's widened eyes could only see the sky spinning violently.
BOOM!!!
The violent impact shattered the sandy terrain like a tidal wave hitting a cliff. A twenty-meter-wide crater erupted instantly, quicksand rolling down the newly formed slopes. Light was pinned at the epicenter, his skull fractured, blood pouring down his face. Thanos stood over him, holding him down with one hand.
ROAR!!
Seeing its master brutally struck down, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon's eyes turned a bloodthirsty red. With a thunderous bellow, it swung its massive, building-sized claws downward, tearing the air with a sharp, shrieking whistle.
Thanos didn't even flinch. He slowly raised his head to look at the descending, razor-sharp talons. "Your protector is very loyal."
He casually raised his free hand to meet the strike.
BOOM!!
The earth trembled beneath the deafening collision. The gigantic, chilling claw slammed into Thanos's bare palm. Even though Thanos's hand was only the size of a single one of the dragon's scales, his arm acted like an impenetrable pillar of heaven. He wasn't pushed down a single inch.
Thanos calmly wrapped his fingers around one of the dragon's massive talons. He gave a light grunt, his impossibly dense muscles bulging, and swung his arm violently.
The Blue-Eyes White Dragon, a beast weighing thousands of tons, was lifted clean off the ground. Thanos spun the dragon in a massive half-circle and hurled it away.
CRASH!
The dragon was thrown miles across the desolate landscape, smashing straight through a distant hill. It plunged deep into the mountainside, buried under thousands of tons of rock and gravel, letting out a pained, muffled roar.
Just as Thanos sneered, confident in his absolute victory, the crackling sound of unstable energy sparked directly behind him.
He threw his arm up in a backhand block just as three blindingly bright Energy Ball Level 3 projectiles slammed into his skin.
Light, whose head wound was rapidly knitting itself back together thanks to his Regeneration, had used Shunpo to teleport out of the crater the millisecond Thanos threw the dragon. The consecutive explosions detonated with majestic, burning force, kicking up a massive wave of superheated air.
Light was pushed back by his own blast wave, hurriedly stabilizing his footing in the air.
When the dust cleared, Thanos's expression was incredibly ugly. His left hand hung slightly limp. A huge, charred wound had been blown open on his forearm, and thick, dark blood dripped steadily onto the yellow sand.
"Boy," Thanos snarled, his livid face twisting into a terrifying, sadistic grin. "You have angered me."
The moment the words left his mouth, a searing, bright red light ignited within the Titan's eyes. Beams of superheated, cosmic plasma—pure cosmic energy—shot from his eyes directly toward Light.
"I AM THANOS!"
As an Eternal born on the moon of Saturn, Thanos possessed unsurpassed strength, endurance, and resilience.
But he also possessed the innate ability to manipulate cosmic energy, firing devastating plasma heat rays from his eyes and hands. It was this godlike power that made him the undisputed overlord of his quadrant.
Light's eyes widened in sheer panic. He rapidly materialized three more Energy Ball spheres and threw them forward to intercept the cosmic beams.
He knew it was useless. The disparity in strength, speed, and energy output was insurmountable.
The cards he currently held in his hand were nowhere near enough to survive this encounter.
'I'm going to die!' Light thought, desperation clawing at his mind. He screamed inwardly at the top of his lungs. 'System! Use all my Fan Values! Draw everything! HURRY!'
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Word count: 2563
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