The King: T'Challa.

Chapter 35: The End Of Another Chapter

Emily lost the thread of the battle more than once. It wasn't simply the scale—the screaming sky, the stink of ozone and ash, the ground juddering under leviathans as they fell—it was the tempo. The fight had become a tide, rushing and retreating, and she was just one swimmer in the pull.

She had handed the gauntlet to the kid in the red-and-blue suit when she'd run out of better options. He'd taken it with both hands and a bewildered, determined nod—"Hi! I'm Peter!"—and then he was gone, webbing himself like a pendulum through a jungle of chitin and steel. She caught glimpses of him between eruptions of smoke: launched from a crumpling girder, sliding under an Outrider with a yelp and a thwip, clutching the gauntlet to his chest like a goalkeeper protecting the ball at full time.

Above them the dark belly of Thanos' flagship bucked, and then it split like a can peeled with bare hands. A column of white-hot energy tore through its spine, a thunderclap rolled the air flat, and the ship pitched into the lake as if swatted by a god. Emily threw an arm up against the shockwave. For a heartbeat there was nothing but the roar of water and the raining glitter of molten plating.

"Yeah! Oh, yeah!" Rocket's voice crackled in her ear, half-delighted, half-deranged.

"Danvers, we need an assist," came Rhodey, tight with urgency.

Scott, somewhere near the van, whooped. "Tunnel's up! Tunnel's up!"

Carol Danvers dropped through the smoke and landed in a three-point crouch a few yards from the kid; he was on the ground, the gauntlet curled against his ribs as if he could fuse it there by will alone. Pepper hit down in a bloom of blue fire beside Okoye. Mantis, Shuri, the Wasp, Gamora—one from now, one from then—and Nebula swept in, a phalanx on foot. The line of Thanos' army broke into a long, serrated wave and came at them.

They didn't break. Okoye met Corvus Glaive with a flicker of shield and a savage twist, his blade skittering from her spear before it found his throat. Valkyrie tore a leviathan's eye with a downward cut, Wanda crushed another in a red fist of force with a face like winter. Gamora rode the broad back of a Chitauri gorilla, pinned its skull and hacked until it slumped. Pepper and Shuri covered Carol as she accelerated, the gauntlet clenched under Carol's arm, cutting through Outriders and Sakaarans as if through rain.

Emily stepped into Thanos' path without a battle cry or speech, just a steadying breath and her palms up. Pepper came down hard at her left, Shuri braced her gauntlets at her right. The three of them loosed power in a single, braiding sheet—repulsor white, sonic gold, Emily's power a cold, difficult blue. Thanos staggered, skidding back on his heels, his blade gouging furrows in the earth. Carol streaked past in a contrail, already through the gap they'd opened.

He adapted. He always did. His eyes flicked once to the blue van at the far end of the field, to the door Scott had thrown open with ridiculous courage. Thanos planted, pivoted, and threw his double-edged sword with a discus thrower's economy. The blade whirled, a black crescent cutting a seam in the air, and smashed through the van's guts. The Quantum Tunnel exploded into sparks and silence. Carol tumbled from the shock, hands empty. The gauntlet spun end over end, heavy as an anvil, and struck the mud with a sound like a bell being dropped.

Strange reached the lake edge and raised both hands. A honeycomb of portals knitted into a wall against the incoming surge of water as the flagship sank. The flood bowed and snarled and held.

Emily was already moving, legs burning, when Thanos' backhand caught Tony across the jaw. Stark pinwheeled, armour sparking, and hit a ridge of shattered concrete hard enough that Emily felt it in her teeth. Thor hit next, Stormbreaker in one hand and Mjölnir in the other, and for a second they almost had the Titan's arm pinned—until they didn't. Thanos broke them like sticks and flung them aside.