Thinking about that, Iron Man quickly shook his head to chase away the ridiculous idea. At the same time he pointed toward Black Panther and the others in the distance.
"Support the Wakandans as much as you can while keeping yourselves safe. Their sacrifices have already been way too heavy!"
"Relax, Mr. Stark, no problem!"
Little Spider nodded eagerly and accepted Stark's request right away.
He fired off two strands of webbing and shot straight into the heart of the enemy in the blink of an eye. Every punch and kick he threw carried at least thirty to fifty tons of force. A single hit from him was usually enough to drop one of the Outriders on the spot.
Soon he reached Black Panther's side.
As for Black Panther himself, he was doing just fine.
After all, that vibranium suit of his…
Cough, cough.
Vibranium suit.
With Thanos already taken away, Strange staying out of the fight, and Scarlet Witch not attacking her own side, that suit basically turned him into an invincible pay-to-win powerhouse.
Not only was he invincible, every time he took a hit the vibranium absorbed the impact and stored it up. Once it reached a certain level, he could release the whole thing in one concentrated blast.
In other words, Black Panther was a top-tier whale running around with both a damage-reflection armor and an invincibility cheat.
He stayed busy, constantly moving across the battlefield to lend a hand to any teammate who needed help.
If he had been lazy, he could have just lain down somewhere and let the damn Outriders whale on him all they wanted.
He was so eye-catching that way that he probably would have drawn even more enemies. And with that reflection armor working overtime, his kill count might have ended up higher than it was now.
But no matter how broken he was, one man still could not save all his people. Little Spider's arrival gave the Wakandans a huge boost of help.
Except…
"Your Majesty T'Challa, I'm here!
Oh right, do I need to kneel or something? Is that a tradition with you guys?
But Mr. Stark said it wasn't necessary.
So how about we just fist-bump?"
In the middle of the fight, T'Challa could only stare helplessly at the kid in front of him. Against his dark skin, the way he rolled his eyes stood out extra clearly.
"All right, no greetings then. As expected of Your Majesty T'Challa, you really do have presence!
After we finish this battle, can I visit your country? I heard the vibranium there is what Captain's shield is made of. I love that shield to death!"
"Of course you can, but first we have to finish the fight!"
T'Challa cut off Spider-Man's endless chatter with a helpless sigh, then did his best to tune out the kid's motor mouth and kept on killing enemies.
Yet the more he fought, the more he realized something.
Spider-Man's nonstop talking actually had a bit of a rap rhythm to it. It made his own punches start syncing to the beat without him even noticing. What the actual fuck!
…
On the other side, Strange dropped from the sky like a meteor. The ground beneath him instantly cracked into countless tiny fissures.
Dark energy gushed out of the cracks and wrapped around over a hundred Chitauri in the blink of an eye.
A moment later the energy tentacles retracted, dragging every bound Chitauri straight underground.
At the same time the fissures sealed up and vanished without a trace.
Strange studied the ground nearby carefully.
"Ebony Maw built a fairly solid dark dimension down here. So who exactly is locked inside? Could it be our big green guy?"
He slid his hand through the air in front of him.
A huge magic circle appeared.
As the circle formed, Strange slowly rose into the air while the ground directly below him split open at high speed.
In roughly five seconds he saw the dark dimension Ebony Maw had created.
After observing it for a moment he shook his head and muttered to himself.
Right then Captain America, who was busy smashing enemies with Mjolnir, suddenly heard Strange's voice.
"Get over here. I need time and space to release the big guy Ebony Maw locked away, which means the Hulk!"
"Hold on!"
Captain America spun the hammer a few times, then shot straight into the sky.
He spotted the glaringly obvious magic circle at once and crashed down beside Strange.
With Outriders closing in from every side, Captain America hurled his shield high, then slammed Mjolnir into it with everything he had.
BOOM!
The violent shockwave blasted countless Outriders flying.
While pulling his hammer and shield back, Captain America spoke seriously to Strange behind him.
"Go do what you need to do. I can protect you like this…"
"Protect me all day, I know!"
Strange cut him off with a deadpan expression and threw himself completely into analyzing the dark dimension.
Five full minutes passed before he finally cracked the space open. A massive roar from Banner tore out through the fissure!
Realizing he had left that dark place, Banner grabbed the nearest rock layer for leverage and leaped straight onto the surface.
The second he saw the Hulk, Strange put on his friendliest face and spoke with a gentle smile.
"Hey, Banner. In the future I saw, you should be the one in control of that body right now, yeah? You can control your anger, right? You know who the enemy is, right?"
"Heh…"
Faced with this "talking to a toddler" tone, Banner gave a disdainful chuckle.
"I know exactly who the enemy is. I also know your teacher is called the Ancient One. She has incredible presence and her boyfriend is ridiculously strong!!!"
With that, Banner scooped up a massive chunk of earth and hurled it at the raging giant ape charging toward them.
Strange was completely choked by Banner's reaction.
He stared blankly at Captain America and roared.
"What the hell happened to you guys in 2008?!"
"Uh, it was basically the love story between your beautiful teacher and Superman…
Trust me, Heisenberg is perfect for your teacher. Those two get along amazingly well!"
"I wasn't asking about that…"
Strange's face twisted into pure grief and indignation.
At that exact moment, Iron Man, who had noticed the Hulk's return, dropped down beside the two of them.
"Hey, Strange, I've got something important to ask you!"
"Ask away!"
"You said before that out of fourteen million futures, we only win once.
So is this the one?"
The second Stark finished speaking, Strange's expression darkened.
"I don't know. In every future I saw, there was never a guy who beat the crap out of Thanos!"
With that, Strange turned and left helplessly. Before he could get too far, Stark called after him.
"All right then. Looks like things will be a lot easier for us now that he's here.
Oh, and your teacher is seriously gorgeous. Heisenberg got really lucky!"
"Piss off!"
…
Meanwhile, poor little Barton the archer…
Cough, cough.
We usually call players who are great at screwing over their teammates "archers."
After all, you can't be too blunt.
And right now, Barton had once again miraculously landed the most important job on the entire battlefield!
The one where you farm like crazy in the early game and then carry everyone late…
Cough, cough.
Okay, he was just an archer, not an ADC. He really didn't have the power to hard-carry the whole team.
But somehow this perfectly ordinary guy had ended up with the single most critical job at this exact moment.
Guarding that damn Infinity Gauntlet.
Barton was already struggling to fight while clutching the gauntlet and fleeing for his life. It was only thanks to plot armor that he hadn't died to the Outriders yet!
He held the gauntlet in his right hand and a knife in his left, slashing apart any Outrider that got too close. Then he kept running without a second's pause.
The next instant he heard the sound of wings flapping beside him. Wasp shot out from next to him in a blur.
Wasp looked a little lost. She glanced left and right, frowning as she searched for something.
A moment later she muttered to herself in confusion.
"Huh? Where's my husband?"
So yeah, having a husband who can shrink that small really isn't great. In the middle of a fight like this…
"Where did my husband go?"
He just vanishes!
Hearing Wasp, Barton quickly told her, "He should be looking for the quantum tunnel in his van. We need to send the stones back to the past!"
"Got it. I'll go find him. You stay safe!"
"Don't worry!"
Barton nodded confidently. No matter what, an ADC had to stay confident!
And the moment Barton got confident, the Avengers usually ran into trouble.
Less than half a minute after Wasp left, the Barton Effect kicked in.
He was parkouring and killing enemies at the same time when he suddenly floated into the air.
The Infinity Gauntlet slipped straight out of his arms and shot off into the distance.
Barton whipped his head toward it and saw the gauntlet fly right into Ebony Maw's hands.
Before he could even shout for help, Ebony Maw smashed him hard toward the sharp rock spikes on the ground!
At the critical moment, someone always saves our poor C-position marksman.
Quicksilver obviously could not crawl out of his grave, so this time the one who saved Barton was Gamora with her green skin.
She tossed Barton aside casually, then glared at Ebony Maw, who was admiring the Infinity Stones, and cursed.
"Damn it, I'm too late!"
As she spoke she used the communicator Future Nebula had given her not long ago to call her little sister.
After all, she was a good older sister. Once she confirmed that Future Nebula was worth saving, she had let her go and teamed up with her to take out the stubborn past version of Nebula.
That was when the communicator came in handy.
Gamora shouted into it.
"I've been watching Ebony Maw the whole time. His sneaky behavior was definitely suspicious, but I was too late. He already has the Infinity Gauntlet!"
The second she finished, Nebula and Quill sprang into action. The two of them flew straight toward Ebony Maw on the opposite side from Gamora.
While flying, Quill fired his energy gun at Ebony Maw, but the alien merely waved his hand and blocked every shot.
Ebony Maw then looked down at the gauntlet and shook his head regretfully.
"Only four stones?"
As he spoke he slipped the gauntlet onto his right hand.
"Even though two are missing, these should be enough for the Master. Now we just wait for the Master to return from the cosmos!"
With that he looked expectantly up at the sky.
But the moment he raised his head, a red light suddenly flashed across the horizon!
The next instant, his mage's intuition kicked in. He instantly activated the Space Stone in the gauntlet and teleported himself far away from the battlefield.
At the same time Strange noticed the anomaly. He immediately opened the Mirror Dimension and yanked every ally he could find inside!
/-\
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