Crack!
More and more fracturing sounds erupted from Ronan's body.
A dense web of hairline fissures spread across him.
Inside the ice, Ronan's eyes moved, glaring straight at Bant through the searing cold. The ice couldn't hold Ronan much longer, yet Bant still hesitated.
When it came down to it, the Power Stone was simply too dangerous, and no one could say what Ronan would do next. Just like when they'd gone up against Hydra—Bant's plan had been solid, but nobody expected Hydra to bring in Bruce Banner. If Bant hadn't been there to cover everything, that battle could have gone completely the other way.
This was no different. What if Ronan hadn't really betrayed Thanos? Or what if Thanos found out Ronan had the Stone and took it from him before Bant could? Another scenario entirely. With the Stone's power boosting him, Bant wasn't afraid of Thanos, but facing a Thanos armed with the Power Stone and facing a Thanos with nothing were clearly not the same difficulty.
Bant remembered the lesson he'd drawn after the Hydra incident:
No perfect plan, only overwhelming power.
So…
"Now's the time for overwhelming power."
Another idea came to him, but it depended on whether Enara and Ojana were willing to play along.
With that thought, Bant reached out and pressed his hand against Ronan's chest.
Splash!
A huge burst of water erupted as Bant drove Ronan from the sea's surface back down into the depths. At the same time, the cold radiating from his body surged out, instantly freezing the ocean for hundreds of meters around!
A frigid white iceberg rose like an island, bobbing in the water. Ronan, who'd been on the verge of breaking free just moments ago, was once again sealed inside the ice for a long, long while.
"Just sit tight for a bit."
Bant exhaled frost, then tapped the little broken watch on his chest.
"X Superman!"
In an instant, a black medium enveloped his body, and specks of white light spread across him like a starry sky.
In that moment, he seemed to become the universe itself.
Within his mental space, Bant felt as though he'd crossed millions of light-years in an instant, traversing countless star rivers and galaxies until he finally appeared before Enara and Ojana. The two of them were still discussing proposals with Watchless Bant, looking as though they hadn't rested for a single moment.
Enara: "The three thousand five hundred and eightieth proposal—hm? The pest is here?"
Bant: ???
"Since when did I become a pest?"
Enara immediately turned her face away and let out a little hmph through her nose. If she'd had a body, Bant could easily picture her crossing her arms and looking off to the side, exactly like a girlfriend in the middle of a sulk.
"Little Bant," Ojana said, her face full of hurt. "Why did you isolate our consciousness streams?"
At this, Watchless Bant and Superkill both spread their hands helplessly, indicating there was nothing they could do.
Originally, their consciousnesses had been shared with Bant, so he would hear every single proposal and all the discussion. But that meant having three voices arguing nonstop inside his head, which made it impossible to focus on anything else.
So Bant had simply done what Superman did: he pushed the voices in his mind far into the distance, so that unless he actively listened, he wouldn't hear what they were saying.
Apparently, Enara was upset about exactly that.
"Sorry, Enara…"
"I've already heard that apology once," Enara said.
The one who'd apologized before, naturally, was Watchless Bant.
Watchless Bant: I bear too much.
Since he and Bant were essentially the same person, Enara's hmph wasn't so much real anger as it was her way of making it clear she was dissatisfied.
"We'll swap sometime," Watchless Bant said with a shrug.
He'd spent all this time going over proposals with Enara and Ojana and had rejected most of them. The proposals those two raised were usually far too whimsical, with no thought given to the consequences. Like that time Ojana wanted to resurrect the gods of the Void without considering all the other lives dwelling there.
Bant had long since realized that Enara and Ojana were like a pair of cats. As long as you stroked their fur the right way, even the pricklier one, Enara, was easy enough to handle.
"Alright, what do you want?" Enara interrupted the three thousand five hundred and eightieth proposal she'd been about to discuss and asked instead.
When they'd left Watchless Bant to debate proposals with them, the agreement had been that whenever Bant had a need, his proposal would jump to the front of the line. Normally, if Watchless Bant weren't here, Enara would be the first to demand reading Bant's mind—one of the rare proposals that she and Ojana could completely agree on. But now, everything needed three people's agreement before they could act.
"I need a fake Infinity Stone," Bant said at once.
Enara: ?
"What do you want that piece of junk for?" She genuinely couldn't understand. She was perfectly aware of what the Infinity Stones were. The moment she and Ojana had arrived in this world, they'd scanned all its information. Six Infinity Stones combined could indeed wield impressive power within this universe—but that was about it.
Ojana couldn't understand either.
"Just one, and a fake one at that?"
She looked at Bant with an expression that clearly said: Has this kid lost his mind?
Bant was not crazy in the slightest.
He could, of course, just ask Enara and Ojana to bring all six Stones straight to him. But the problem was, if he did, Bant with six Infinity Stones would be equipped to handle most crises. That would become a "big issue," and Enara and Ojana might end up debating it at length.
But now, he was only asking for one fake Power Stone—an utterly trivial, microscopic thing that couldn't possibly be any smaller. Interrupting their proposals for such a trifling matter—even Ojana, let alone Enara, couldn't quite keep a straight face.
In that moment, the two of them were like a pair of busy parents, and Bant was the kid carefully creeping up to ask if he could have a single dollar.
Fine, take it!
Forget one, he could have a whole set!
Neither of them saw any point in wasting time on this.
Only then did Bant clarify what he needed the fake Power Stone to do. First, it had to be virtually indistinguishable from the real Power Stone for a short time—but the instant Bant willed it, it would lose all its energy and become nothing more than a pretty rock.
Without missing a beat, Ojana said in a gentle, motherly tone, "Give Little Bant six fake Infinity Stones. Agreed."
Enara shot her a glance.
Seriously, sis? All six?
But she didn't voice any objection. "Agreed."
Honestly, even Bant hadn't expected the plan to go this smoothly. He'd originally intended to drop the whole thing if Enara and Ojana still didn't agree—getting the real Stone was, after all, the top priority.
Then Bant looked at Watchless Bant, who hadn't spoken.
Watchless Bant met his gaze and rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, do I even need to say anything? I'm literally you!"
"Just going through the motions."
Watchless Bant: "Agreed!"
Right afterward, all four of them spoke in unison: "Proposal passed."
And so, before Bant's eyes, six different rays of light flashed past, and the six glowing stones materialized in front of him, arranged in an Infinity Circuit pattern.
Enara waved him off. "There, go play."
Then she picked up right where they'd left off. "The three thousand five hundred and eightieth proposal: Should we eliminate the corrupted Old Gods on Earth?"
"What's that about?" Watchless Bant asked back.
Ojana answered, "They are the earliest life forms the Creator placed on Earth. The Old Gods extracted from Thor's genes in the watch are precisely those beings. The problem is, apart from the goddess Gaea, all the Old Gods have already fallen. The only issue is…" She looked at Enara. "Those fallen Old Gods have already left Earth. There are no fallen Old Gods currently on Earth, so there's no way to eliminate them."
Enara raised an eyebrow. "So what? Find them, bring them back, and then eliminate them. Simple."
Old Gods: ???
Thanks a lot!
Enara's logic was straightforward.
The universe's timeline was destroyed, so time can't be reversed? Then just make a new timeline. Simple enough. Those fallen Old Gods might only be off-planet, but even if they'd all been wiped out, as long as the proposal passed, X Superman could resurrect them first—and then kill them!
To Ojana, though, that broke protocol. "Bringing the fallen Old Gods back to Earth is a separate proposal. It must be placed at the end of the queue."
Unresolvable proposals could only be skipped.
Bant didn't listen any further. He hadn't forgotten that Ronan was still waiting for him in the frozen sea.
He de-transformed.
The six Infinity Stones were brought out of his mental space. These stones held power comparable to the originals, but they couldn't maintain it for long. Once their energy was exhausted, they would turn into completely ordinary rocks.
Bant had already pictured the scene: Ronan, or maybe even Thanos, finally getting their hands on the Power Stone, thinking they could sweep everything before them—only to discover it was a fake. When that happened, he'd deliver the line: "Your gem is female, but mine is male. When your female gem meets my male gem, it just won't work!"
Wait. Bant reconsidered. He'd better swap the genders on that. Otherwise, it wouldn't be politically correct!
Outside the mental space, the hundreds of meters of ice were already barely able to contain Ronan any longer. The island-like iceberg was collapsing fast, shattered chunks heaving like dragon scales in the surging sea.
Ronan was about to break free. Bant knew he had to hurry.
He immediately stowed the other stones, then transformed back into Frost Phantom. Carrying the fake Power Stone, he phased straight through the ice and pried the real Power Stone free.
The instant his fingers touched the original Stone, the Infinity Stone's overwhelming power flooded into him. Searing heat and tearing agony ripped through his entire body.
At that moment, Bant felt like he'd grabbed a red-hot iron bar with his bare hand.
"Agh—!"
"Eunice, wrap the original Stone in a vibranium sphere!"
He quickly commanded the vibranium battle suit that had been covering him to morph, shifting into a sphere that encased the real Stone and stopped its energy from continuing to leak out. Otherwise, even Frost Phantom's body would have a hard time holding onto the original Stone for long.
Next, Bant slapped the fake Stone onto Ronan's hammer.
Once that was done, he didn't linger a second longer. He phased out and shot straight up through the frozen sea.
"Stingray!"
A flash of red lightning streaked across the sky.
—
Sakaar Messenger Ship.
By now, everyone had returned to their original ship.
Except two people were missing, and three new ones had been added.
At the moment, they all had questions they wanted to ask.
Phylicia looked at Peter. "Where's Little Bant?"
Steve's eyes swept the ship. "Where's Bucky?"
Peter pointed at Nebula and Gamora, whom Phylicia and Steve had brought back. "Who are these two?"
Black Panther pointed at Star-Lord. "And who's he?"
Only Venom poked a head out, sizing up Nebula and Gamora before remarking with gleeful schadenfreude, "We bring these two back to Earth, you people of color just got a whole lot more diverse."
Peter backhanded him, caving Venom's face in, and answered, "Little Bant's out fighting that Kree. This idiot here is Star-Lord."
Star-Lord: "I am not an idiot!"
Phylicia dropped Nebula onto the floor. "She's one of Thanos's people."
Black Panther followed suit, pointing at Gamora. "So's she."
Steve was still stuck on his original question. "So where's Bucky?"
No one knew where Bucky was, but right then, Bucky's voice came through the comms, hearing the conversation happening on the ship. He opened the channel himself and answered:
"I'm on the Kree fleet."
Everyone's faces fell.
Steve's anxiety spiked, his fists clenching instinctively. "Bucky, are you okay?!"
"Did the Kree find you and capture you?"
"Capture me?"
On the Kree fleet, Bucky pursed his lips. His gaze swept across the deck littered with Kree bodies, over to Rocket Raccoon, who was tearing mechanical parts off a dead Kree with all four paws, and then to Groot, whose ten fingers had stretched incredibly long, skewering dead Kree one after another like some kind of shish kebab.
He paused for a moment.
If this was what they called being captured…
Bucky said flatly, "I've taken over one of their ships. The other ships haven't noticed anything wrong yet."
Steve: ???
Are you speaking English? I think I'm having trouble understanding you.
/-\
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