"OH YEAH, YOU'RE MUCH MORE OF A THANOS." Strange announced once the terrifying creature arrived. Thanos was huge, his hands were bigger than the size of my head. He was about the size of the Hulk, maybe even bigger.

I crouched behind the wreckage that Strange was currently sitting on, out of sight from the big, purple alien. My hands were shaking violently, it was hard to control them in high-stress environments. I focused on my breathing as I waited for the signal to move. In and out... In....

Peter was above me, resting on some sort of structure above the stairs Strange was on. The hazy orange sky made his features look so calm. When I looked at him it almost felt as if time had stopped. Everything slowed down as a breeze blew through his curly brown hair, making the nerdy boy look more like a super model. I wondered how he felt so at ease considering we were all probably about to die. He caught me looking at him and gave me an encouraging smile before putting his mask on.

Dang it, Emmie. You can not be ogling over Peter Parker of all people. Especially not right now.

"I think you'll find our will equal to yours." Strange announces, signaling for our plan to start.

"Ours?" Thanos looked up in time to see a chunk of wreckage falling from the sky to crush him. He tried to use a stone from his gauntlet to stop it, but he was too late.

"Piece of cake, Quill." Tony comes flying in from behind the wreckage. He's still trying to prove to Quill that his plan was better.

Quill comes flying in from the other side, "Yeah, if your goal was to piss him off."

The chunk of wreckage on top of Thanos suddenly erupts, the pieces glowing with purple. He lets out a shout as he uses a stone to force the pieces at Tony. Peter drops in front of Thanos and shoots webs at his eyes so that he cannot see. He shoots a web onto the structure above him and uses his swinging momentum to kick Thanos in the face.

Okay. I breathe. Go time.

I ran out to the scene to see Strange summoning a blade with his powers. I quickly do the same and begin to swing it at Thanos. He's quick and dodges all my blows. Strange is attacking him from the other side, and just when I think I'm gonna get a good hit in, Thanos pushes me off of him. I fall back into the dirt, my knees burning from the contact and my chest heavy. I watched as Thanos caught Strange's blade and kicked him backwards. Luckily, Strange was more prepared than me and summoned a shield.

"Kid!" Someone called from behind me. I turned around to see Quill running up to Thanos. I use my powers to create little steps that Quill runs up on as he shoots Thanos. When he gets close enough to him he places some sort of bomb on his back.

"Boom!" He exclaims jumping off of Thanos, flipping him off in the process. I quickly make a portal that he jumped backwards into.

The explosion knocks Thanos down and Strange orders his cloak to wrap itself around his fist. Suddenly, Peter appears from Thanos's right and kicks him in the head.

"Magic!" He exclaims each time he hits Thanos. "More magic."

"Magic with a kick!"

"Magic with a-" Thanos grabs him from the air and throws him to the ground with his hand around his neck.

"Insect!" He throws him off to the side. As he hurtles through the air I start running in his direction, away from Thanos. I conjure up a forcefield around him so he lands softly.

Behind me, some sort of explosion happens. When I turn around, another ship has landed on Titan and has hit Thanos. He miraculously gets up, barely affected by the crash.

"Well, well." He announces looking at robot that emerged from the wreckage.

"You should have killed me." She scoffs.

"It would've been a waste of parts!"

She begins to run at Thanos, sword in hand. "Where's Gamora?!"

Thanos uses one of the stones to throw her aside. She flies through the air flailing her arms. Strange begins to run towards Thanos and I do the same without stopping to think. He conjures up energy ropes that grapple onto the gauntlet. Thanos struggles to pull it free as I do the same to the other arm. Star-Lord shoots an electromagnet onto the ground that keeps Thanos from moving. Peter swings in and makes a web to hold Thanos back. Strange opens a portal above Thanos's head and Mantis lands on his shoulders.

"Is he under? Don't let up." Tony yells as he tries to get the gauntlet off of his arm.

"Be quick... He is very strong!" Mantis yells. Peter joins Tony to help pull off the gauntlet after he sees that I have him contained. My arms begin to tire as Thanos struggles against my rope. I grit my teeth hoping that they get it off soon.

"I thought you'd be harder to catch. For the record, this was my plan." Star-Lord lands in front of Thanos. "Not so strong now, huh? Where's Gamora?"

"... My... Gamora...?" Thanos asks, he is beginning to tire, it's evident in his voice.

"Oh, bull–shit. Where is she?"

"He is in anguish!" Mantis tells us.

"Good."

"He... he... he mourns!"

"What does this monster have to mourn?!" Drax furrows his brows. My arms begin to burn and I silently will the gauntlet to come off.

"Gamora." The robot announces. "He took her to Vormir. He came back with the Soul Stone...but she didn't."

At that explanation everyone silently understood that he killed Gamora. I turned to see Quill's expression, pleading with him not to do anything stupid.

"Okay, Quill, you gotta cool it right now, understand?" Tony yells quickly as we all watch him slowly turn to Thanos.

"Don't, don't, don't engage, we've almost got this off!" Tony yells tiredly. Everyone strains against Thanos. The longer Thanos struggles against us, the more we begin to lose our grips.

"Tell me she's lying." At Thanos's lack of a response Quill loses it. "ASSHOLE!!! Tell me you didn't do it!!!"

"I... had... to."

As Quill starts tearing up, I watch everything come undone in slow motion. He starts hitting Thanos with his gun screaming at him. Tony lets go of the gauntlet to pull Quill off of Thanos, leaving Peter by himself. My body screams at me to let go, but I still keep holding on.

Thanos wakes up from his trance and shrugs Mantis off his shoulders. My heart drops as he makes direct eye-contact with me and sends me flying over his head. I went unconscious as I hurtled through the air.

.•¤۞¤•.

WHEN I CAME TOO, I was wrapped in Peter's arms. Moon-chunks and fiery debris were floating around in the hazy orange sky. I could hear yelling in the distance. There was an ache in my ribs and I could taste blood in my mouth. Peter had his mask on so I couldn't see his face.

"I got you." Peter was saying. It appeared he caught me after Thanos flung me across the deserted planet. Once he noticed I was okay, he slowly lowered me back to the ground.

"Thank you." I blinked at him, suddenly feeling colder once his body heat left me. He nodded and swung off somewhere, leaving me by myself. I look around the quickly darkening planet trying to locate Strange. Instead I see explosions in the distance. I take off running to the best of my ability, trying to ignore the sharp pains in my ribs.

In front of me, Thanos beat the shit out of Tony Stark. He stabbed him with Tony's own sword. I watched in horror as blood fell out of his mouth and he struggled breathing.

"You have my respect, Stark. When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive." Thanos lets go of Tony and steps back from him. "I hope they remember you."

Thanos began to raise his gauntlet and my heart dropped.

"No!" I screamed as I ran in between the two. I gripped his gauntlet with both of my hands and screamed at Thanos again. I wasn't thinking, I didn't know what to do. So when he began to close his fist, I flinched waiting for his blow.

"Stop!" Strange croaked from somewhere behind me. "Spare their lives... and I will give you the stone."

Thanos threw me aside. I fell onto my back in the dust and brushed hair out of my eyes as I watched Thanos aim his gauntlet at Strange. Strange couldn't possibly give up the stone for my life. The time stone was more valuable than both of our lives combined. He can't just throw it away like this.

"No!" I scream, my voice hoarse. "No! Don't!"

But my helpless pleas did no good. Strange summons the Time stone and holds it in between his fingers for a moment. Sobs wrack my chest as he hands it over to Thanos. The Titan adds it to his gauntlet, the energy flowing through him. Through blurry vision, I watch as he leaves.

It was official; we lost.

Quill runs to us demanding answers. We were all utterly exhausted and defeated that no one felt like answering.

"Did we just lose?" Quill asks with a raw tone to his voice.

"Why would you do that?" I ask Strange. My tears strangled my voice.

"We're in the Endgame now."

.•¤۞¤•.

THUNDER RUMBLES IN THE HAZY ORANGE SKY as the Guardians and Avengers collected themselves. Mantis helped prop Star-Lord up. Peter helped Tony to his feet. I sat with Strange, making sure he was okay. We breathed heavily as we watched Drax and Nebula limp towards us.

"Something... is... happening." Mantis breathes before she disintegrates into ashes. I stare in horror as I watch the people I just fought alongside slowly turn to ashes. I covered my mouth with my hand as life faded around me.

I start to feel light headed and I knew in my gut that I was next. I turn to Strange with urgency.

"Strange, I'm not ready." I can't control the sobs that violently rock my chest. "I'm not ready- I'm only sixteen! Please, I don't want to die!" I plead to him, finding it hard to control my breathing. He calmly grabs my hands and holds them to his chest.

"Steven, I don't- I'm not- please!" I choke as he tightens his grip on my hands in an attempt to calm me down.

"Emmie, listen to me." He spoke with a calm urgency. I stared at his face as I tried to slow my breathing. He raised his eyebrows as he spoke slowly. "Thank you for having my back. You did great."

"I'm so proud of you." Big, alligator tears rolled down my face as I listened. I was so scared. I didn't know what was going to happen. "But... There was no other way."

He smiled sympathetically at me as he, too, slowly began to disintegrate into ash. I screamed, frantically grabbing the air in an attempt to make him come back. I was by myself in outer space. The people around me were dying, and the only thing I had that was familiar to me, just died too.

I looked around at the darkening sky and I made eye contact with Peter in the process. He looked at me with his big, brown eyes that seemed to be saying "I'm sorry." I felt hopeless, I didn't know what to do or how to save myself. It was cold and I was alone. So when the darkness began creeping in my vision, I didn't fight it, and let it succumb to me.

Memories of my life played out before me until it all went dark.

A/N
this is definitely the best chapter i've written so far. i've been so excited to upload this one!!
this is officially the end of act 1 and the end of emmie being happy!!!
yay more on that later
<3 cj