Beyla - Loki

Titan

Beyla sat on a jagged shelf of Titan's ruined ridge beside Stephen Strange, fingers absently worrying the hilt of the dagger she refused to let go. Loki's dagger. The wind worried the red dust in spirals below them; broken moons hung like fractured ornaments in a dark sky.

A ripple of air. Space folded. Thanos stepped out of nothing a few yards away-colossal, calm, gauntlet gleaming with two stones. His gaze weighed Strange first, then Beyla.

"I take it the Maw is dead," he rumbled. "This day extracts a heavy toll. Still... he accomplished his mission."

"You may regret that," Strange replied, rising, cloak whispering. "He brought you face-to-face with the Master of the Mystic Arts."

Beyla rose too, voice low and furious. "And a goddess with a score to settle."

Thanos's mouth twitched. "Will you sting me?"

She didn't answer. She didn't need to.

Thanos lifted the Space Stone. Reality rippled. For a breath Titan became whole again-proud spires, blue skies, oceans glinting like broken mirrors in sunlight.

"Titan was like most planets," he said, almost wistful. "Too many mouths. Not enough to go around. I offered a solution."

"Genocide," Strange said.

"Random. Dispassionate. Fair." The vision snapped back to ruin. "They called me mad. And what I predicted came to pass."

"Prophet," Beyla muttered. "How inspiring."

He looked at her, something predatory behind his eyes. "A survivor. Something your 'toy' never learned to be." He flicked Loki's dagger to the dust at her feet.

The sound it made when it hit the rock cut through her like a bell.

"With all six stones," Thanos said softly, "I snap my fingers, and it all stops. Mercy."

"And then what?" Strange asked.

"I rest. And watch the sun rise on a grateful universe." He tilted his head. "The hardest choices require the strongest wills."

"You'll find our will equal to yours," Strange said.

"The two of you?" Thanos arched a brow. "I doubt that."

Beyla's grip tightened. "We brought friends."

A shadow fell. A mountainous slab of wreckage hurtled down at Thanos-Quill's signal. Thanos caught it with the Power Stone a heartbeat too late, buckled-and the fight exploded.

"Go, go!" Stark's voice hissed in Beyla's ear as nanotech unspooled around him. He clasped her forearm and vaulted them both off the ledge. The slab detonated purple; shards screamed past. Beyla threw up a shimmering wall of force, bees bursting from it like a black-gold comet to needle the titan.

Thanos flared violet; the stingers ricocheted, raking cuts across Beyla's arms. Venom burned. She gritted her teeth and kept moving.

Spider-Man webbed over the titan's eyes and punted his jaw. Strange conjured an emerald blade-caught in Thanos's bare hand and crushed. A kick sent Strange skidding; Quill peppered Thanos's flank with crackling mines and dove through a portal, flipping him off on the exit.

The cloak strangled the gauntlet. Mantis dropped from another portal and latched onto Thanos's temples, face twisting with effort. "Be... quick," she gasped. "He is very strong!"

Spidey anchored a lattice of web to the gauntlet. Strange slung glowing bands that cinched the titan's arm. Stark hit the ground running, armor screaming, grabbed the gauntlet cuff and hauled. Beyla landed opposite him, fingers slipping under a seam, bracing a foot on Thanos's chest and prying with a fury that made her vision spark white.

Quill stalked in, twin pistols leveled. "For the record, this was my plan. Not so tough now, huh? Where's Gamora?"

Thanos's lips moved. "My... Gamora...?"

"Don't." Stark didn't look away from the gauntlet. "Don't engage. We almost have it."

Mantis whimpered. "He mourns."

"He took her to Vormir," Nebula spat from the rocks as she slammed in, blade flashing. "He returned with the Soul Stone. Without Gamora."

Quill froze. The universe shrank to a point.

"Quill," Beyla said, raw and urgent. "Don't."

He took a step, face crumpling. "Tell me you didn't." Another step. "Tell me you-"

"Quill, don't!" Stark barked.

The pistols came down on Thanos's face.

Everything unraveled at once.

Mantis flew. Spider-Man tumbled. The gauntlet slid-then slammed home as Thanos flexed. Space shredded; Strange pinwheeled away. Stark hurled a rocket. Thanos answered by tearing a wounded moon out of the sky and driving it down in incandescent avalanches.

Beyla crashed into slag, lungs crushed empty. She clawed upright in time to see Stark meet the titan alone, knives of nanotech forming and failing as quickly as his blood could fuel them. The blade went in just under Tony's ribs-clean, efficient. He doubled over with a wet gasp.

Thanos steadied him on a rock as if easing an old man into a chair. "You have my respect, Stark. When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive." He almost sounded sincere. "I hope they remember you."

He raised the gauntlet.

"Wait!" Beyla staggered between them, vision strobing, hands up. She was shaking and couldn't stop. "Take me."

Thanos glanced down, amused. "Too easy." A casual kick sent her skidding across the gravel. She hit Strange's boots and blinked up at the sorcerer.

"Stop," Strange said-and the word cost him something. He lifted a shaking hand. The Time Stone glowed into being above his palm, spinning like a trapped sun. "Spare his life, and I'll give you the stone."

"No tricks," Thanos warned.

Strange swallowed. "No tricks."

The stone drifted into the titan's hand. Green fire surged along the gauntlet as it seated, humming with destiny.

"One to go," Thanos said.

He stepped backward into a portal and vanished.

Silence fell. The red wind blew.

"Where is he?" Quill shouted, stumbling over the rocks. "Where-did we just-did we just lose?"

Stark hunched around the wound, panting. Beyla slid to his side and rested her head against his knee, eyes empty.

"We're in the endgame now," she said, and the words didn't sound like hers.

They barely had time to breathe when the air changed-thin, electric. Mantis stared at her palms, which were turning to ash, drifting away like smoke from a doused brazier.

"I-don't feel-" she whispered, and was gone.

"Beyla?" Drax asked, looking at the powder sifting off his forearms. He smiled sadly, as if savoring a last joke. Then he scattered.

"Quill!" Stark barked. Quill reached for him, eyes soft and baffled, and disintegrated mid-step.

"Mr. Stark?" Peter Parker staggered toward Tony, face gray. "I- I don't feel so good..." He crumpled into Tony's arms, clinging. "I don't want to go. Please, sir. Please-" The boy's voice broke into a child's as he vanished, leaving only dust on Stark's chestplate and trembling hands clutching air.

Across the rocks, Strange met Beyla's eyes. He looked almost peaceful. No theatrical last words, no explanation. Only a small nod-as if confirming a number he'd already counted to the end-and then he was mist, and then nothing.

Beyla stared at her own hands, willing them to unmake as well. To end. To follow.

They stayed.

Of course they stayed.

Dying would be too easy-exactly, she realized dimly, what the titan had said. Her palms shook. The dagger slipped from her fingers and rang against the stone, bright and small in the dead air.

Titan turned its face away from them and slept.