Cured! At Last, the Cure for All The Ills of Mortal Mankind!

Sue puts an oval force-field around herself and the gem, with her at one focus, the gem at the other. If any green rays or visible light lasers penetrate the force-field, she makes it invisible.

This is not any fancy shape, nor is she doing three things at once, and if Sue cannot keep up a force field potent enough to keep out out an astronaut, a hulking brute, and a distracted, clutching-his-own-face Latverian tyrant and superscientist, she will retire from the Fantastic Four, and marry Rama-Tut! He might be a bad guy, and, yes, he used a mind control ray on her, but he DID want to marry her, and a girl has to think about her future!

Wishing for Reed's stretchy arms (and sorry about the many times she thought how lame that power was -- Reed IS a darling, isn't he?) Sue dives on the gem.

Even before her fingers touch it, she is thinking, "Soul Gem! All these three men, each in his own way, has a damaged soul! A faceless misanthrope, a brute who killed his own true love in a spaceship accident, and a lycanthrope! Heal them! Supply what is missing!"

(Sue does not turn Doom mask invisible at this time. That would just be mean.)

The Soul Gem glows orange. It draws the Brute's soul out of his cosmic-ray-ravaged body, and John Jameson's soul out of his lycanthropy-cursed body.

And it ALMOST pulls Doom's soul out of his facially-scarred body, but Doom's many layers of sorcerous defenses and camouflages hold back the Gem for now! But, were Sue to concentrate entirely upon it, even the wizardly secrets of DOOM must fall forfeit!

When the two souls are removed, they flow into the Soul Gem. As they pass through it, Sue feels herself energized. Her powers are tripled! She can easily turn anything invisible, or turn invisible things visible (something she hardly ever does) or make a forcefield to hold back Thor and the Hulk simultaneously!

Also, she feels very satisfied. When the Soul Gem is with her, nothing is impossible. Surely even Reed will see that!

She must, therefore, never give up the Soul Gem.

Death's Champions Partly Swayed to the Side of Life

Storm continues to concentrate. (She would think about the fact that Star Lord has really come through for them, but...concentrating.)

Then, she concentrates some more.

But when Star Lord loses his stone....she puts an immense amount of space around Quicksilver, so that no matter how quickly he runs, he can't get anywhere.

He runs VERY fast. So she puts him FURTHER away. He doesn't get any closer.

"Pietro"

Wanda still has the Will Stone, and she wills her brother to look at her. To see her fully. Perhaps Love and Will shall be enough to overcome Death--and Dark Phoenix.

Dark Phoenix. She remembers she was a hero once... Perhaps, with all the Will in the Universe, she could be again. She tries to gift her some of that will. Though not the stone itself.

Pietro does in fact slowly turn, seeing Wanda through the purple shine of the Heartstone.

He grins, quirking up one side of his mouth.

"Here. You need this more than me," he says, and pitches her the Heartstone underhand.

Now, Dark Phoenix, on the other hand ...

Wanda catches the Heartstone. Pietro lights up with purple fire. Wanda feels the world blur around her, as Pietro runs, takes her by the elbow, and moves her out of the way of Dark Phoenix' crashing tsunami of dark flames!

Large parts of the city of Hala are blasted, burning while becoming stiff and cold with death.

Wanda contributes some of the green stone's will, but unlike Pietro, Dark Phoenix is willingly helping Thanos bring death to the cosmos. Therefore, her added will allows her to summon more death-flames and do even more damage!

Wanda stops contributing willpower. That isn't helping.

None May Behold the Ultimate Secret of DOOM!

Sue yanks the gem in a random direction out of the line of fire while turning all the rest of the magnetic particles in the area invisible. Good luck with that trick, Victor.

She then creates a horseshoe shaped tube of force leading from Dr Doom's glove back toward mask, hoping to ricochet whatever he throws back at himself.

"Doom, no, you jerk!" bellows the Brute. "It must be MINE!"

"No, it must be mine!" says John Jameson, clinging to the Brute's back. "No one else can keep its power in check!"

"It must be no one's -- " says Doom, and then his eyes within his iron mask smolder glowing orange.

"-- for none can command its awesome power, save DOOM!" says, obviously, Doom.

Doom fires a tractor beam to sweep the heavens and pull the jewel toward himself. The beam is refracted by Sue's force field, and pulls his mask off.

"No! NO! None may behold the ruined visage of ..."

Wait for it ...

Wait for it ...

He's making a fist ... he's standing up ... here it comes ...

"... DOOM!"

The Brute stomps, startling Sue Storm. Her force field vanishes, as does her invisibility projection. But she, herself, does not become visible, thanks both to long practice and lots of narrow escapes.

"The Soul Gem!" yells the Brute, and leaps skyward to intercept it.

"You FOOL!" rages Jameson. "Bad enough this world suffered under the rule of a Man-Beast ... a Brute-Beast would be infinitely worse!"

And he hurls a rock, like the baseballs he threw to make All-American in college. The rock hits the Soul Gem and knocks it sideways. Like the Hulk, the Brute cannot adjust his course once airborne, and misses it.

The Soul Gem clinks to the ground, followed by all eyes.

Well, not Doom's eyes. He is clutching his cape around his face, groping on the ground to find his mask.

The Super Skrull's Triumph Extinguished

"Ow ow ow ow!" Ant Man says, or screams, thinking to Spiderman over the mental link, "Spidey, knock him out! Knock him out! Knock him out! I mean the Superskrull!! Ow!"

Spider-Man quickly understands the essence, the very pith, of Ant-Man's mental communications.

Knock. Him. Out.

It's so simple, once you have all the information in the universe! A child could understand it. A CHILD!

Spiderman uses the mind gem to put the Superskrull to sleep.

This frees Ant-Man, who had already shrunk out of the hold. Ant-Man's ants are free to return to their cylinder, where they have stored some tasty sugar crystals.

Spidey asks the Mind Gem for the following information: Does the mindgem have a name? If so, what name?

I AM ETERNITY. I AM ALL THAT IS, OR WAS, OR SHALL BE. BUT NOT WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, FOR THAT IS NOT PART OF ETERNITY.

THE YELLOW STONE IS MY MIND. THE GREEN STONE IS MY WILL. THE RED STONE IS MY WRATH. THE PURPLE STONE IS MY LOVE. THE ORANGE STONE IS MY SOUL. AND THE BLUE CUBE IS MY BODY.

To Defy Death's Champions!

Storm who was keeping half an eye on Thanos, expecting him to stand up, sighs, but is not surprised.

Storm, holding the Space Gem, asks it to to make this spot a space without death in it...temporarily.

The blue light floods the square, pushing the black energy away. But it seethes, constantly infiltrating the spaces between surges of blue. If Storm's concentration falters for but an instant ... !

But she is filled with confidence. Literally.

"Hey, we got this!" says Star-Lord, taking her hand. Purple light flows into her.

And you know, he's right! They HAVE got this.

Machine Man, unable to use the red stone he holds, is overwhelmed by Death.

"Still okay here!" he chirps, unaware that he's surrounded by black death radiation.

Having been reliably informed by her beloved brother that Death is to be avoided until it is necessary, Wanda uses the Will gem before it is all the way clouded to resist and push back Death.

She also links minds with Reed Richards--who was fiddling with creating a free-willed computer.

"We are in a bit of trouble."

She gives him a mental picture of what is going on. But she -is- fighting off Death, refusing to meet her just yet.

"Death as a personality?" says Reed Richards in her mind. "I don't think we need to share THAT assumption yet. But something certainly is invading the Infinity Gems. Since they are tangible facets of reality, they cannot be changed without changing the entire universe, which is a level of work even Galactus, charged with the power of the cosmos, cannot accomplish."

That's all very interesting, thinks the Scarlet Witch as Death starts propagating up her arm.

"Therefore, it is reasonable to assume, as a working hypothesis, that the Gems are NOT being changed. Rather, they are being tuned to focus on the death which is already present in the universe, much as a microscope focuses on first one object, then another. The Gems are not being changed; they are being used."

"The distinction is important because if they were being changed by a force powerful enough to overwhelm the universe with death, we would have limited options. But if they are just being used remotely, well, each Gem has an operator already. And indeed, Miss Maximoff, you are holding back death effectively, as is Miss Ororo, with the help of Mr. Vell. Mr. Stack isn't doing very well, but apparently he can't die."

"Since Death is a part of the universe, we cannot expel it from the Gems. But we can certainly focus them so that it is no longer being brought into such sharp emphasis. Ladies, Mr. Vell, please try to return the Gems to the state they were in before being seized by Thanos. It should be possible to observe their past within them, and select a state you would like to restore."

Well, would you look at that! It IS possible. And unless there's reason not to, Storm and Wanda can do just that.

Machine Man cannot. And the black energy halo swirling around him has grown quite large!

"Do not resist," says Thanos dully. "It merely lengthens the struggle. But if you need more reason, see now those of your comrades who have crossed over to the other side ..."

Out of the black butterfly wings of Death comes a redheaded woman in a maroon and gold leotard, flying in the heart of a black firebird. The logo on her costume is a skull with wings outspread behind it.

She raises her arms, and fires leap from every building behind Wanda. The fires curl toward her, wrapping the woman in dark death flames.

"Dark Phoenix ... " says Thanos ...

And a flash of black and bone-white blurs out of the Death Portal, around the square ten times, then skids to a halt in front of Storm and Star-Lord. It's a young man, with wild white hair, thick brows, a sarcastic smirk on his face, and smoldering Keds on his feet.

"... and Quicksilver."

"We, the dead, will bring you into our mistress' kingdom."

Thanos starts toward Machine Man, while Dark Phoenix gathers a skyful of dark fire to drop on Wanda, and Quicksilver whips the Heartstone out of Star-Lord's fingers with a snap.

Oh, and behind Thanos, the Red Skull turns in a circle, staring blankly at everything. His eyes are black.

The Brute, Thwarted by Brains!

This is so sad! Sue figured out it must be the Brute all of one second after she made her speech.

The moment Reed gives her a sad look, it was obvious who it was. Because the real Reed would never look at her that way, and this IS counter earth, after all: The Brute did not need to move through space to get here, because he lives here.

She steps very quietly to a spot where the Brute is between her and Doom, so that if Doom shoot at her, the poor Reed of counterearth gets hit first.

Sue concentrates as she has never concentrated before and puts a small bubble of force right in the middle of the Brute's mighty palm!

She expands this bubble was quickly as she can, trying to catch him by surprise and force his fingers apart the barest fraction of an inch needed to slip a forcefield under his fingertips and around the orange stone.

To help the Brute lose his concentration, she takes out her compact (which she always carries with her in her belt. It is made of unstable molecules. Also a lipstick.) and blows compact powder through a forcefield straw leading up the nose of the Brute.

POP!

The air around the Brute's hand is repelled with tremendous force, enough to knock him down! Also he's sneezing.

The orange Soul Gem apparently has vanished!

John Jameson, the Soul Gem parted from him, heals instantly, then concludes the Soul Gem exploded.

Dr. Doom, on the other hand, concludes it is invisible, and sprays the sky with magnetic particles. In one part of the sky, the particles disappear, becoming invisible when they adhere to the Soul Stone.

"Now! To banish the Soul Gem beyond any possibility of recall -- for the safety of the universe!"

Says Doom, gesturing with his glove and powering up a mighty blast!

Infinity vs. Three Times Infinity!

Storm shouts, "Woohoo!" as she reappears...and then remembers that might

lack a bit in dignity.

She joins in helping Wanda and Star Lord. She concentrates on the

Tesseract willing space to aid Wanda and Star Lord and impede the Red

Skull.

Wanda looks almost amused. She has already beaten the wrath stone... and

that was before she had the will stone. And was enveloped on purple rays.

"Do you not remember that I cast aside wrath? But I still have these...

and they were given to me for a good purpose."

Hex bolts. Quite a number of them.

BZZAP KRACKOW HISSAM! SKRA-KOOM!

Four different facets of Creation clash and contend for victory in the

square outside the Genetic Archive. Space ripples and shudders, causing

buildings to topple sideways and bystanders to fall diagonally upward.

Waves of purple love envelop entire megascrapers, causing the millions

within them to treasure the universe, and each other, as never before. Red

wrath rays stab through steel and stone, setting afire whatever they

touch. And behind it all, constant green light burns, implacable,

demanding that the Red Skull be defeated.

But nothing can extinguish the light of the Wrathstone! It is a facet of

the universe itself, and to destroy it would be to unmake What Is in favor

of something which no longer contains Wrath, but is far different from

what was made before all things began.

But on the other hand, separating the stone from Johann Schmidt, aka the Red Skull, risks no such cosmic consequences.

POW! The red stone leaps skyward, popped from the Skull's skull.

CLANG! A purple arm on an extensible metal framework catches the Wrath Stone before it can descend. Machine Man reels it in, his TV eyes blinking red and white in sequence.

"I'm cancelling the rage," he reports. "It's easy the second time ... same signal every time. Anybody need anything enraged?"

PING! Spider-Man's thought enters the Earthwomen's minds. "We can now send thoughts to each other."

SCHKOOORLK ... goes a very strange sound from within the Infinity Gems.

Thanos, the mad Titan, stands up stiffly. His skin is an odd maroon hue, and his jaw hangs slackly. He looks, well ... dead.

"Death is well pleased with me," he reports without much intensity. "I am halfway to her goal of a lifeless cosmos. Half is enough to begin ..."

He raises a hand. On his empty glove, rattling loosely on his shrunken hand, three black vortices gather in three of the six open slots. Each black hurricane grows a pinpoint of white within its center, clarifying into a grinning skull.

"Once you have passed into her domain, no doubt you will feel as I do ... although the victory is curiously muted. Not at all what my imaginings led me to expect. But somehow, that no longer seems to matter. But why explain in words what you can experience in person? Behold ... the Death Stones."

The red wrath stone, green will bracelet, and blue space cube begin to cloud, as though ink had been released into their depths. The heroes holding them feel a penetrating cold and panic spread outward from the stones ...

... although Machine Man shakes his head.

"Nope, nothing wrong with this stone," he says. "No death stone here!"

A fly lights on Machine Man's head and falls off, dead.

Doom Strikes At Reed Richards Again ... For the First Time!

Reed Richards gives Sue an odd look. He seems almost … sad.

Then he faces Doom squarely and says,

“There, you see, Victor? Sue knows who has always been the better man.”

THWA-KOOM! Doom causes the miniature atomic reactor in palm of one of his gauntlets to EXPLODE, venting a trail of poison flame and atomic steam which explodes against Sue’s force field and curves into a rainbow shape.

“A force field! Very well,” says Doom, and steps to the right. He fetches up against the invisible wall.

Then he points the index finger of his other glove at Reed Richards, and a beam of green light snaps into being! As the force field is invisible, it is therefore permeable by light, and this light is of an intensity to cut steel!

“Arrgh! The .. pain …” says Reed, and falls in a heap at John Jameson’s feet.

“That TEARS it!” says Jameson, and makes to leap at Doom. But instead, John Jameson falls full-length, held by the ankle by Reed Richards himself!

Or is it? For Reed’s blue uniform is tearing at the seams, bursting asunder as masses of purple striated muscle form on Reed’s bony frame! His hair falls aside in a shower of graying brown as the mighty brain of Mr. Fantastic swells within its inflating cocoon of bone, while the now mighty-muscled purple bald creature who once was Reed Richards lifts John Jameson upside down by one All-American ankle!

“As I suspected!” Doom crows. “You are not the Reed Richards with whom I have contended over so many years, but the imitation impostor Reed Richards from this mocked-up mockery of an Earth! The Reed Richards whose spacecraft exploded in his face, killing his friend Grimm and the Storms, and transforming the smug Mr. Fantastic into the monster men call … the BRUTE!”

“You bet!” agrees the Brute. “And I knew you’d zap puny Richards and let me out! But now, before the same thing happens here, lemme take advantage of the Man-Beast’s momentary weakness …”

And the Brute’s iron-hard purple fingers dig into John Jameson’s brow, pulling the orange Soul Stone into view without, somehow, leaving all sorts of horrific injuries.

How About When I Fought FOUR Avengers, and Didn't Die?

As he is about to be crushed, Ant Man grows to giant size, grabbing the descending foot as he does so. With one hand about the foot of Avengersuperskrull, he pounds the Avengerskrull into the ground like a tentpeg.

And he sends ants up his nose, and swarming in front of his eyes to blind him.

The ants are actually more of a distraction than the hammering – between his analogs of the Hulk and Thor, Avengers Super-Skrull is pretty much impossible to clobber.

And Ant-Man finds his thumb somehow turned, as if by a super-soldier who has mastered all the arts of close combat fighting, so that he, Ant-Man, falls to his knees in pain!

THRAKOOM! Lightning explodes from the sky as  a storm of supernatural proportions explodes across the heavens, slamming Ant-Man over and over with multi-million-volt discharges which approach the temperature of the Sun!

(These bolts also COMPLETELY destroy the Iron Man suit’s last functioning systems, clinging as they are to the Super-Skrull’s arms and legs. So that’s one Avenger down … two, because the bow breaks also.)

A lot of the lightning bolts miss, though, because the commander of the thunder is also trying to scratch the inside of his nose, and blink his eyes clear of ant venom. Oh, if only Ant-Man had joined the Avengers sooner, then Avengers Super Skrull would have his powers, too! Plus his own cylinders of ants!

Spiderman asks the mind gem to establish a mind-link between all the members of the Ad Hoc Coalition of Champions to allow them to send mental messages to any other member of the party (and only that: no mixing of thoughts or memories). 

He also realizes that Avengers Super-Skrull has an amusing acronym, which Spider-Man can use at a later time.

Storm, Sue Storm, the Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, and … Machine Man, I guess … suddenly realize they can send each other mental messages!

This interruption does not really harm Ant-Man or Sue Storm, but the other three, each operating a thought-controlled ultimate weapon, experience a momentary lack of focus while fighting the Red, Red, Very Red Indeed Skull!

Oh boy. Spidey knows who’s going to get blamed for THIS …

To Stand In the Shadow of DOOM!

Hmmm. Sue's instinct would have been to run away.

Sue says, "Hit him again! Harder! Clobber him!

"But, oh, please be careful!! He is a dangerous man!

"He is not as bright as Some Other Scientists and it makes him so cranky, you see! He did not discover the Negative Zone. Or Unstable Molecules."

She is one hundred percent certain Jameson is going to die. She calls out, "I believe in you, John! Do your best!"

Then she turns invisible and steps to one side, trying to get behind Doom.

And she will try a difficult trick: she puts a force field anywhere between Doom and John Jameson where a weapon or barrel opens in Doom's armor, or between Doom's hands and Jameson, to try to stop any gunfire, laserfire, sonicblasts, ultrablasts, gamma rays, xraylasers, zeta beams, deathbeams, force beams, dehydration rays, shrink rays, heat rays, micro-missles, time vortex rays, or whatnot going from Doom to John.

Since the force fields are invisible, Doom will not see them. She just hopes she is quick enough to put them in front of any weapon he draws or finger he points.

But she is not putting either in a bubble: John should be able to smite Doom's hulkproof armor with all the power of his American Astronaut fist.

She makes little irregular elevations and depressions in the ground on which Doom stands (assuming he rises to his feet) invisible, or coats his left boot with a force field, so that his footing is bad during the upcoming donnybrook.

John Jameson does indeed press Dr. Doom in fisticuffs!

He ought to have his head knocked off. But Doom keeps slipping, stumbling over rocks, and otherwise fumbling what should otherwise be an effortless win.

Clang! Clang! Jameson punches the side of Doom's head, where Doom's green hood covers his iron mask, so Jameson doesn't break his knuckles.

Thorp! Glap! Doom launches micro missiles and fires zeta beams, to no effect.

Suddenly, Doom turns, holding out an armored glove to hold Jameson momentarily at bay.

"Richards?" he exclaims in astonishment. "But HOW? I used the Will Stone to bend space around this world, rendering entry or egress equally impossible!"

"Through space, yes," Reed Richards says. "But there are other ways of accessing other worlds, Victor, as we both know. I'd be a poor scientist indeed if I only had rocket ships in my arsenal."

"John Jameson, right?" he says to Jameson. "Seems you've been off the radar for more than a few years. Have you been here on Counter-Earth this whole time?"

Jameson replies,

"Dr. Richards, I'd be glad to fill you in on my back story, but there's still this maniac to deal with. Care to lend a hand?"

"From all the way over here?" scoffs Richards. "He'd roast me before I took two steps. No, what we ought to do is ..."

"MANIAC?" demands Doom hotly. "Who threw himself on me with fists upraised? Who chose at once to enter into the maelstrom of combat, without, as his own NASA's motto declares, seeking the unknown to make it the known? Who if not you, John Jameson?"

"Well, yes, I did attack you," Jameson counters. "Am I supposed to wait until you attacked me?"

Reed Richards comes over beside Jameson, passing within arm's reach of Sue Storm. But he looks right through her, as though she did not exist!

ACH! If Zis Be Ze Red Skull's Final Downfall!

Storm concentrates on the Tesseract. She flies forward, gale winds blowing, throwing lightning and trying to find some way to separate the Red Skull from it. (She doesn't necessarily need to be the one to grab it, just trying to separate it from the Red Skull.)

The Skull lashes out with red fury bolts, which the purple Heartstone's purple rays dissolve.

Thus Storm reaches the Red Skull and seizes the Tesseract in one hand ...

And she is suddenly on the brink of EVERYWHERE.

Storm dangles by one hand over a vast gulf of galaxies. The Tesseract controls space, so space is bounded only by its imagination. She could step to literally any place in the universe, but if she falls ... she falls everywhere.

What does that even mean? It's just lucky she's claustrophobic and not acrophobic, because this bids fair to be the brink of the Ultimate Drop!

The Red Skull was creating teleportals above and below the Scarlet Witch, to pull her in two directions at once.

"As you vished," says Wanda, using her augmented will to place the portals by the Red Skull, just as he would have had her held.

"No! I cannot be commanded -- I haff ze power!"

"Johann, you vill not be needing that--"

She wills the space stone from his hand.

"Nein!" he says. Storm, holding the space stone with the other hand, falls into a very large portal.

And is gone.

"Thanos had a point," the Skull grinds out. "Zat purple space-Jew knew what is the currency of ze gods. DEATH!"

He focuses a whole lot of red death energy to kill the Scarlet Witch.

"I know you are unable to resist the rage of the Wrathstone," he gloats. "Or unwilling, vich in zis elevated state of reality, amounts to ze same thing."

And Storm returns, through a blue-edged circle behind which blazes a universe of golden suns, rotating in a harmonious pattern.

She has been through a large variety of places, but eventually figured out the Tesseract, and returned to where it became unmoored from space.

Star-Lord closes in, the Heartstone painting him violet.

"Let's get him, ladies!" he says. "One, two, three!"

X-Men vs. Avengers ... in Green!

Antman will jump on to Xman superskrull, and order his ants to keep biting Avengers superskrull. From his position on Xman superskrull, he will then shout insults toward the Avengers superskrull.

And when the inevitable fist comes, he will dodge away (leaping with the proportionate strength of a man) and jump to Avenger superskrull's nose, while (so he hopes) Avengerskrull is pounding Xmanskrull.

"Ha!" says X-Men Super-Skrull. "I possess the power of Professor X, who totally counts as an X-Man! He was in issue 1! He had a costume, briefly. His name even STARTS with an X! So he counts as an X-Man, and therefore I have his power, that being telepathy, and therefore I know what you are trying to do, Ant-Man! So you will fail, because ..."

KA-PUNCH!

X-Men Super-Skrull has the fortitude of Colossus and the healing power of Wolverine. But he's being punched by the equivalent of Thor wearing Iron Man's gloves with the combat mastery of Captain America while Hulking out. And he has a bow and arrow.

I think all observers would agree that were Colossus and Wolverine to be punched by Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and the Hulk, that the mutants in question would be clobbered to the greatest degree of clobbering permitted by law. Of physics.

X-Men Super-Skrull is So Very Down.

Avengers Super-Skrull, however, lowers his density to near-zero, causing Ant-Man to fall through his nose, into his chest, and then down to the ground between his feet.

And he quickly STOMPS Ant-Man with the fury of the Hulk, the might of Thor, the martial arts mastery of Captain America, and a torn, short-circuited boot that still WEIGHS, at least, as much as Iron Man's!

Meanwhile ...

Spider-Man asks the Mindgem who has what infinity gem, and where each gem-holder currently is.

Spidey suddenly KNOWS, as though remembering something he has always known, that

The RED Wrathstone is on Hala, capital of the Kree Empire, in the Red Skull's brow.
The ORANGE Soulstone is on Counter-Earth, on the other side of the Sun, within John Jameson's brow.
The YELLOW Mindgem is on Mordemond, Thanos' ramshackle Frankenstein deathworld, in Spider-Man's hand. (He already kinda knew that one!)
The GREEN Willstone is on Hala, around the Scarlet Witch's wrist.
The BLUE Tesseract, the Space-Stone, is on Hala, in the Red Skull's left hand, being buffeted by a gale-force wind.
The PURPLE Heartstone is on Hala, in Star-Lord's hand. He's parrying the Skull's attempts to kill the Scarlet Witch and Storm.

To Wield the Power Of Ze Gods!

"Oh, dude!" says Star-Lord. "We have got to get you in front of a VCR!"

"I do not know what that is, either," says the Red Skull.

Storm tries not to laugh.

She will continue to zap the Red Skull with lightning to the degree that she can...and Thanos, too, if he's still lying there.

If nothing else, this may distract them from Wanda.

The Red Skull was right about one thing. Gypsies are deft pickpockets. And how else is one to survive on the street when one parents have been crushed thanks to the implements of destruction of TONY STARK?!

Ah. Well. That is for another time. Even so, that is a lovely bauble on the wrist of the Red Skull but it would look better on Wanda's wrist.

While he is provoking the young man with the lovely purple eyes, Wanda relieves him of the Will Stone bracelet. That may get his attention. And he may not be able to force the Space Stone to do his will after all.

Lightning crashes around the Red Skull as he raises his right fist high, the Will Stone blazing green around his wrist.

"Mutant genetics!" he sneers. "Your freakish powers are as nothing compared to the forces once wielded by ze gods. Without even tapping the power of the Ragestone or the Tesseract, I can parry your puny lightning show, and turn its fury back upon its sender!"

The lightning does not turn back on its sender. The Red Skull frowns at his wrist, which doesn't have the Will Stone on it any more.

Meanwhile, Wanda has put the Willstone on her own wrist. She is now aware that Reed Richards, across the universe, is creating a mathematical model of a free-willed computer, to be used to model irrational behavior and find a solution.

"I haff ... been robbed?" he exclaims.

"Yeah!" says Star-Lord. "Eat hot light, Nazi scum!"

And a purple blast richochets off a red force field. Everyone bathed in the violet reflected glow feels benevolent towards their fellow men. Even the Skull, but then he ruins it by aiming the Blue Stone at Wanda and initiating a portal above her head, another one at her feet, and having them pull her in two different directions.

Mind Gem? No, I Don't Mind At All, Thanks

"The man killed Batman's parent was ... Joe Chill! Thank you, Mind Gem!!"

Spider-Man sifts through the information in the mind gem to find the information on how to turn on, slow down, or temporarily shut off the information flow.

And then he uses the knowledge temporarily to shut off the flow of the information.

Since the mind gem is feeding the Cosmic All into Spidey, Ant-Man is free to move.

Ant Man shrinks to mansized, ducks, throws a can of electical ants at the Superskrull, jumps, shrinks down, tries to find a crack in the armor, and, if he gets inside, rewires the electrical circuits. He tells his ants to "go to town biting and zapping him."

This worked great on the real Iron Man armor, and this is just a Skrull copy! Plus, electrical ants.

The Skrull has the powers of Thor, though, so the zapping doesn't bother him.

Ant-Man ducks the shield and jumps into the armor. He pulls wires and pops connections. The Avenger Skrull scratches with the strength of the Hulk, tearing his own armor apart. This causes him to fall out of the sky.

THUMP.

Ant-Man is hit by lightning from the storm which wasn't there seconds before! X-Men Skrull teleports away to avoid return fire, then focuses his red optic blasts on Avengers Skrull and walks the beam back and forth, searching for Ant-Man. He also enrages Avengers Skrull, but Hulk, so he's already pretty enraged.

Ant-Man is barely conscious -- so THAT's what happens when an ant is struck by lightning!

About this time, Spider-Man finds the shutoff procedure and shifts the Mind Gem from "Drink From The Firehose" to "Helpful Suggestions When Asked."

He sees Ant-Man fighting the Avengers and X-Men and not dying. Wow!

Red, Blue and Green Skull

>THWAM! The arrowhead is deflected by a purple shield, created by (who else?) Star-Lord!

You know, Storm may owe that cute dweeb an actual date.

Storm rushes forward as soon as Thanos falls, trying to grab one of the stones...preferably space, because wrath is icky to touch.

But Thanos only fell a few feet, whereas Storm has considerably more distance to cover. Unable to seize the stone, she focuses the lightning of the storm, zapping the Red Skull a lot.

But Hala's weather control systems prevent her from really whipping up a skullbuster of a storm, so he endures it. The Will Stone protects him from serious damage.

Drax the Destroyer leaps high to stab the Red Skull, and is knocked out of the air by a green blast that swats him like a fly. A very tough fly who is still alive, but very unconscious.

Star-Lord uses the Heartstone to shoot the Red Skull. But the Skull's infinity gems parry the Heartstone's purple influence.

Then the Red Skull warps space around Star-Lord, casting him into the heart of a roaring sun. But Star-Lord uses the Heartstone to resist, causing him to be suspended over a slowly rotating space warp leading to a big bright sun. People near him fall into it, but that was limited to Drax and Storm, who have both moved closer to the Red Skull and therefore don't fall in.

"Star. Lord," mocks the Red Skull. "Perhaps the star will obey your commands, my lord, when you are boiling on its surface!"

And the Scarlet Witch floats up close to him, not least because the Red Skull does not worry at all about what the Gypsy outside his field of vision is up to.

Surely the Red Skull has nightmares. Particularly after what he has witnessed. Wanda will help him see them.

(Parenthetically, is there any major villain that WOULDN'T work on? Maybe Ultron, although his chaotic origin suggests he, too, might have nightmares.)

The Red Skull relives the moment when the Space Gem took him apart a piece at a time and spread  him over a large portion of the universe, very thinly indeed, like butter over a continent of bread.

"Aaagh ... not this time!" he insists. "I haff taken the measure of this Space Stone in our last encounter, and now, instead of bobbing along with the tide, I ... am ... its master!"

"Only a master of evil, Darth," says Star-Lord in a passable English accent.

"Darth ... ?"

"You never saw Star Wars?" gapes Star-Lord. "Oh, dude! We gotta get you in front of a VCR!"

Former Beast vs. Former King

Sue Storm in one panel says, "Let me tell you the whole story..." and the next panel has the narrator box saying "THEN, WHEN SHE IS DONE TELLING THE WHOLE STORY" John Jameson is shaking his head, saying, "Wow! That is a really intricate story with a lot of clues and detailed information you have just told me, Miss Storm. So, Reed has not asked you to marry him? What are you doing later? I 've always wanted to ask you what it was like to be the first woman on the moon?"

or so it should go in Sue's rose-colored fluffy thought bubble.

CLANG!

Dr. Doom returns, landing hard on the pavement outside the fortress of the Man-Beast, ruler of the world.

"You were right," says John Jameson. "He DOES always come back."

"It is not by the indomitable will of DOOM that I come now among you!" Doom shoots back. "Thanos, the mad Titan, cast me here when he recovered the Will Stone, and incidentally rescued me from the primordial black hole at the origin of the universe. I have seen many things, solved many unanswerable mysteries, this day. In time, when I have considered them, this knowledge will cause my enemies to RUE THE DAY when Doom first glimpsed the ultimate!"

John Jameson lopes over and punches Doom in the face.

John winces and shakes his hand. Doom goes over backwards.

"What?" says John. "He was asking for it."

Deadly Dreams of the Duke of Death!

Storm sees Thanos appear.

She thinks:

Thanos? Over the Wrath stone? So wrong! And on so many levels! (And, while Storm does not know this, he has the space stone that Spider-Man had such happy plans for!)

Storm blasts Thanos with winds and lightning, while screaming like a banshee, her hair flying in the winds.

Or, at least, that's what she appears to be doing. Really, she's trying to distract him while her winds push the Wrath stone away from him.

If they could knock the tesseract out of his hands, that would be good, too.

Storm screaming in a hurricane is quite a distraction, hair or no hair. (That would be Professor X). Therefore, Thanos turns and directs a THUD of green energy at Storm, shaping it into a massive arrowhead.

THWAM! The arrowhead is deflected by a purple shield, created by (who else?) Star-Lord!

Captain Mar-Vell flies in an arc to come at Thanos from the side.

"Everyone try something different!" he advises. "Thanos is all-powerful, but even he can't think fast enough to stop us all! And if even ONE of us should survive ..."

WHAM! Thanos uses a blue teleportal to place a cliff in Mar-Vell's path.

Meanwhile, having been miraculously healed by love (luv?), Wanda is right next to Thanos when he comes through. Indeed, he probably comes through practically on top of her.

She's no brawler--but surely even Thanos has nightmares...no, wait. He has dreams. Dreams of love with Death. That may well distract him. Though to other people they may appear to be nightmares.

Her spidery finger gestures infuse crawling red energy tendrils into the mad Titan's mind ...

WHOMP

... and whatever he sees, it's bad enough to make him lash out in every direction!

The Scarlet Witch is knocked spinning away, but rights herself in mid-air.
Several Kree civilians are thrown in all directions like tenpins, but Kree are genetically tough, so they survive. Thanos' bellow of terror clears a circle in the square, except for the Red Skull, who is at Thanos' feet and is slammed into the synthetic pavement by a pulse of green and blue force, then rolled away like an empty paper cup by Storm's thundergale. The Skull fetches up against Thanos' boot, bending around it like seaweed against a concrete post.

"So ..." keens Thanos, "Death! At last you deign to notice me?"

Everyone feels an eerie STILLNESS, as though for a moment their hearts were not beating, their breath not breathing, their very minds and souls still as so many stones. Well, not souls, exactly. Because they can still tell that this is very, very wrong, and also they can remember it afterwards, even though their minds be temporarily inactive.

It lasts but a moment, long enough for someone to say a few words. Perhaps those words were "Yes. I see you now." That does work out to exactly the length of the stillness everyone perceives.

Thanos grins, his massive white teeth splitting his purple jaw like rocks surfacing in the sea. For a moment, a skull seems reflected in his black eyes, truncated as though wearing a cloak and cowl.

Then Thanos falls!

His trunklike legs buckle in different directions and his massive torso drops to the pavement, falling over sideways on top of the Red Skull with a sickening thud.

Star-Lord grasps Storm by the shoulder, shouting to be heard over the hurricane.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Good shootin', Tex!" he manages to make heard. "I think you GOT 'im!"

Then he glances over and uses purple energy to heal Drax the Destroyer, who comes right off the floor with knives in his hands, seeing foes.

"Is that Thanos?" he demands.

"Yup."

"Is he dead?"

"Uh ... " Star-Lord looks around for confirmation. "I think, maybe ... ?"

"I must make sure!" says Drax, and starts for Thanos with knives jutting out of his fists. "None must escape!"

Thanos surges up from the pavement, then falls to the side. From below him, the Red Skull regains his footing.

The Skull glows from within, the Wrathstone red upon his brow. His right hand holds the Space Gem, through which other galaxies can already be seen, and his left holds the Willstone, now deformed by the force of his will into a bracelet around his wrist.

"I would not be too concerned about that," the Red Skull informs Drax. "None WILL escape."

Beyond the Gates of Infinity

"Spidey, grab the gem, and I will grab the Battlebeast!" says Ant Man. Then, Ant Man picks up Battlebeast with his gigantic hand and throws him like a baseball at Xxan Xxar.

Dazed from cosmic awareness, Spiderman now realizes in his visualization of the cosmic all, his life really, really sucks. Even compared to the entire universe.

Spiderman uses his spider-senses to spider-dodge Battlebeast. Since he can dodge bullets, he can probably dodge a club. "Here, doggie! Here boy! Fetch the giant fist! GET HIM ANT MAN!"

At the same time, he webs the mind gem and yanks it to his sticky spider fingers.

And at the same time without looking, guiding his shot with his spider senses, Spiderman shoots webbing into the face of Gorgax, to make an opaque bag over his head.

Spider-Man certainly does maintain his optimism in the face of cosmic evidence that he's destiny's janitor, doesn't he?

And it's times like this, where he accomplishes three breathtakingly precise athletic feats while successfully taunting a non-human intelligence, that KEEP him optimistic!

Because all goes as hastily planned: Spider-Man drops a sticky bag over Gorgax' head, avoids Battle Beast's Battle Bat (it's a club, but somewhat baseball-bat-shaped), and snatches up the Mind Gem into his sticky fingers.

WHUMP! Ant-Man knocks Battle Beast into Xxan Xxar, who shields himself with the coil of magnetic adhesive wire he was using to gather the broken bits of his ant-confusion array. Battle Beast does not bounce off the net of wire, nor appreciably slow down. Xxan Xxar and Battle Beast are thumped, hard. Battle Beast arises slowly, shaking his black-striped white mane to clear his head. Xxan Xxar doesn't arise at all. He's out.

But, y'know, True Believers, optimism ain't always all it's cracked up to be. Because Spider-Man has seen, as well as felt inside his mind, exactly what happens when you touch the Mind Gem. And then he touches the Mind Gem.

What do you imagine happens?

That's right! EXACTLY what Spider-Man saw happen last time!

Spidey feels a flood of knowledge fill his mind to overflowing, only to be washed away by another flood of knowledge. By dint of supreme intellectual effort, the brilliant brain that Flash Thompson has mocked so many times absorbs the wisdom of the cosmos, sorting and categorizing and drawing conclusions which make all the phenomenal data revealed by the Mind Gem suddenly make clear, conclusive sense! The structure, nay, the very MEANING of the Macrocosmic All of which our universe is merely a glimmer in the reflection of the outermost facet of the cosmic snowflake, lies revealed, tantalyzingly close!

And then, of course, the flood of connections and meanings of EVERYTHING ELSE hits Spider-Man's mind, which is borne downstream like a poker chip in a tsunami. Spider-Man briefly bounces in a mental eddy, during which he understands everything there is to know about a retail establishment on the 99th floor of a minor suburb of the Kree city of Maintainopolis (motto: We Built This City on Following the Checklist!), before that, too, is whirled away on the torrent of knowledge.

But Spider-Man is not, himself, an effortless telepath of high attainment. So Ant-Man, the sightless Gorgax, and the thousands of other inhabitants of Mordemond are spared sharing Spidey's shattering scholastic struggle!

Spider-Man has left the building. And the planet the building sits upon.

But hey, Mind Gem!

Battle Beast takes a moment to clear his head. He's not a problem.

However, Ant-Man finds himself assailed by a massively muscled Skrull in a powered armor suit, who uses a mighty Uru hammer to strike a striped vibranium shield, propelling it even faster with paired repulsor rays while bellowing SKRULL SMASH!

Yes, if you've ever wondered what the Hulk would look like if he were WEARING the Hulkbuster suit, wonder no more!

The Man-Beast Tamed

Sue Storm says,

"I am here with Thor, but he is gone. The universe is going to be destroyed by Thanos in the name of Death, and he is gathering God-gems like the one in your skull to adorn the infinity gauntlet. I need your help before Dr. Doom returns.

"I had to leave my spaceship behind. I just want to say that, as astronaut myself, I have followed your career ever since Spider-Man first saved you in episode one! May I have your autograph?"

"Sure," says John Jameson, "if I can have yours. I've followed the Fantastic Four for quite a while, though not so much lately. As you know, this copy of Earth doesn't have an FF, although it certainly does have a Reed Richards."

Jameson considers.

"And Thanos wants the jewel in my head, does he? Well, he'd almost be welcome to it, but if he wants to use it as a weapon, that's a no-go. Does he have any way to locate it? Because if he doesn't, I can just go into hiding."

A Time For Turning Wrath Aside

Storm gives him an approving nod. But she takes a bit of a step back. That kind of cocky handsomeness...and libel to go off half-cocked!

But she does feel a bit of a warm spot for the young scamp.

She gives the father and son a moment and steps back, looking for any approaching danger.

Across the square …

Wanda's rage subsides, no doubt leaving her a burnt skeleton, but that's the power of love, I suppose.

"I vish . . . you vell," she says to Star-Lord as she begins one of those Terminator collapses into a pile of ashes.

But Star-Lord cries out, and directs a purple beam at Wanda. For she has relinquished the power of hate, and the Wrathstone no longer cancels the effect of the Heartstone. Thus, even as her firey form flickers out, her body heals, fueled by the power of love!

The Red Skull is right there, kneeling an arm’s reach from the Wrathstone. But he doesn’t grab for it.

Then, suddenly, a blue portal opens in space, and Thanos steps out, right over the Wrathstone!

Star-Lord turns the purple ray on Thanos, but Thanos holds the Tesseract, and deflects the purple ray.

Hearts of Fire

Wanda, touched beyond words at the reunion of father and son and having taken a step back to review the Red Skull's life, feels the wrath that was sustaining her flicker in hesitation.

Johann Schmidt is pathetic. Horrible but pathetic. And, as the pathos overtakes her, she feels the power of the wrath stone, which is keeping her alive, ebb.

Not wanting to die uselessly, she wills the wrath stone to take her to the source of this immediate misery--Thanos.

Him she will fight.

Thanos is far away at the moment. The wrath stone cannot take her there – its power is over heat and energy and emotion, not space. But she can shoot him with red zap energy from here.

It’s certainly tempting. But if she gives in to the fire, will she ever be able to come back?

Storm, feeling she has given Wanda what help she can, kneels and puts the purple stone on Star Lord's chest, where his hand is--so they are both holding it.

"Can we use this to help you?" She tries to use the stone to heal him, if she understands how to do it...but she is putting it where he can touch it, in case he knows what to do.

“Hell … “ says Star-Lord, and swoons, almost fainting. Mar-Vell squeezes his hand, forcing Star-Lord back into focus.

“… yeah,” Star-Lord finishes his sentence. His hand gropes for the Heartstone, but Storm has to put it in his hand.

Then purple light illuminates his flesh from within, and he is healed.

And handsome!

A Red Skull Is Not Enough (Updated)

For her part, Wanda intends to throw herself on the magical hand grenade, absorbing the rage so that there is none left to slosh over onto her friends. She will even draw it from the Red Skull himself. She will protect, if it is the last thing she does. Then, she will meet Thanos face-to-face, and, if he truly wishes to meet Death, she will oblige him.

Both the Scarlet Witch and the Red Skull are touching the Wrath Stone, so they both get to command it. Their commands are not contradictory: the Skull wants to explode everything with red fire and the Witch wants to absorb the red fire.

So a very large quantity of red destroying flame explodes out of the Stone and Wanda absorbs it all. She even steals the red flame within the Red Skull, robbing him of his rage for probably the first time in his adult life.

Storm directs the Purple Energy of the Heart of the Universe at the Red Skull, hoping to touch whatever is making him so vengeful and full of ire.

To the extent that character is the product of past events, Wanda sees where the Red Skull's anger comes from. A pathetic weak boy overshadowed by a drunken father, Johann Schmidt sought power in science over those who were bigger and stronger than he was. Promoted to high rank by Hitler himself, who saw in Schmidt's smoldering drive an echo of his own generalized fury, Schmidt eventually founded Hydra, shaping it in his own image. So while Tony Stark did indeed invent the weapon which wrecked Wanda's family, it was Schmidt, the Red Skull, who made Hydra into the organization which twisted the Maximoff twins into the tortured warriors they became.

But some of Schmidt's wrath was always there, before the experiences which bent his outward behavior. Are some men born bad? Seeing him from the inside, two women can now testify that, yes, some men are born with the potential, indeed the overwhelming liklihood, of becoming Very Bad Indeed.

And yet ... he could have resisted his inborn temperament. Instead, he reveled in it. So for all which the Red Skull has done, all the vengeance he has earned, the man behind the mask, the real Johann Schmidt, must take the blame.

Or so it appears, at any rate, to the Scarlet Witch, who holds his life in her hand!

The rage-fire consumes Wanda utterly in a whirlwind of flame. But the Wrath Stone is actuated by anger, not necessarily by a healthy hand or an intact body. So it endures, as does its holder.

Her limbs crackle like burning logs. Her hair is a riotous red holocaust. Her eyes blaze scarlet and her dress whips about like rippling waves from a torch held high! Wanda Maximoff, daughter, sister, soldier, Avenger, is gone, but in her place stands a being of fire and passion, truly the Scarlet Witch in form as well as in name!

Fire must burn out. But it doesn't want to.

The Red Skull would pale in terror if his seared skin could still do so. Illuminated by the purple light of the Heartstone, he sees what he has become, standing before him. His victims merely saw a Red Skull -- he is confronted by an entire Red Skeleton, clothed in fire and fury!

He would faint, but Storm's benison prevents even that escape.

Behind Storm, Star-Lord moans faintly:

"My coat ... the tape. I can't die ... I have to get it ..."

He clutches his chest with both hands, trying to hold himself in for one more moment.

".. to my Dad."

Captain Mar-Vell glides to a stop beside Star-Lord. Around him, the green data of the Genetic Archives mirror the blond superhero, his face reflected in thousands of curved stones.

He looks down at Star-Lord, shifting from his reflection to the face of the young man dying on the floor.

"It's all right, son," says Mar-Vell. "I'm here."

Rocket Pistols Soothe the Beast

Sue Storm turns visible, rushes to the fallen John Jameson, and throws her arms around him, and says, "Sorry for shooting you! Are you OKAY?"

"Well," he says slowly, "you killed the Man-Beast. Which wasn't exactly comfortable. But he's been killed before. It's not as bad the second time around."

Jameson stands, rubbing his chin and nose.

"But I'll never get used to having a muzzle," he decides.

"Are the rest of the Fantastic Four here?" he asks. "Together, you might be able to get away before the moon rises, and the Man-Beast comes back. There's a space rocket I keep trying to build ..."

The Jewel That Opened All The Doors In the World At Once

Due to the previously established rules of the mindgem, Spiderman must obey the letter of the order, not the purpose of the order. Therefore, when Thanos says "give me that" Spidey must give him something.

So, using the powers of spider-literalness, Spidey uses the space gem to teleport the glove off his hand (the hand holding the space gem) and into Thanos' face with a resounding slap.

"Okay! It's a bit small for you, Your Purpleness, but if you want it! In fact, I'll help you! I'll make it your size! I'll help you fit it!"

Then, Spidey uses the space gem either to expand the Infinity Gauntlet, or to shrink Thanos's hand, or both. 

So swiftly does the Space Gem respond to its holder that first the Gauntlet expands, then Thanos’ hand shrinks, as quickly as Spider-Man thinks of them. When he reconsiders, the Gauntlet expands some more.

Since the Space Gem cannot expand the Mind Gem (see issue #41) the Gauntlet now has a huge setting holding a relatively teeny-tiny Mind Gem. So even as the Gauntlet falls off Thanos’s now somewhat shrunken hand, the Mind Gem bounces free.

Spider-Man next intends to use the space gem to impose an ever expanding distance to separate Thanos and his flunkies from Ant Man, Vision, and the Mindgem (whether in or out of the gauntlet). 

However, as Spidey starts to do that, two things happen. Well, four:

GORGAX fails to hold Spider-Man’s attention and therefore does not turn Spidey to stone.

BATTLE BEAST misses Spider-Man with his sword but clobbers the holy heck out of him with his mace! Spider-Man, dazed, drops the Space Gem.

THANOS grabs the Space Gem with his itty-bitty hand, and vanishes. For a big guy, he can move pretty quick … but he didn’t take his flunkies with him!

ANT-MAN was gigantic and ordered to halt by Thanos' mental command. And his last weapon went careening into space. So, even if he wanted to obey Moondragon's command, he cannot. Therefore, no matter how compelling her compulsion, he need not, as no sane mind needs to do the impossible.

Ant Man cannot reach Xxan Xxar, as he was commanded to stand fast. So he grows until his arm is longer than the space between, THEN punches Xxan Xxar. The red insect villain deftly places his trapezoidal antenna to block Ant-Man’s big fist, succeeding in defending himself at the cost of having his antenna array smashed to bits.

The ants are no longer confused! They are still halted, although the Mind Gem’s influence is waning. And when the ants bump into other ants, one ant throws another one at Moondragon. Once they hit, without moving from their location, they bite and distract her.

“Ants!” she seethes. “Your simple minds are loathsome to read, even for the brief instant necessary to silence your annoying stings forever! Yet, for Thanos, I will lower myself to .. my lord? You abandon us?”

Thanos has, as described above, vanished.

“Then I will NOT lower myself to commune with these humblest, crudest of minds!” Moondragon concludes. “Nor need I soil my purity of purpose with petty revenge on the being who has caused these painful, annoying bites upon my skin. For what is skin, save the housing of the Mind, that Mind which alone is of consequence?”

“RRARGH!” says Battle Beast. “Help me rip the Spider from the Man and eat his heart!”

“Nor will I have ANYTHING to do with that ENTIRE project,” Moondragon demurs. “If Thanos cannot be bothered to command his loyal subject, then loyal I shall be no more!”

She picks up the Mind Gem.

“And with this, I shall be supreme in the only realm that truly matters – the realm of Mind! Yellow jewel, I command you – reveal all that is known, or ever shall be known, unto my mind!”

A vast rainbow of shades of gold expands from the Mind Gem like a sun rising out of the starry sea.

“The concepts! The connections! They are vaster than ever I dreamed, more subtle and intricate than anything I have ever attempted to learn! But I will dominate this cosmos of fact! In fact, I will … but first I SHALL … or perhaps instead I SHOULD … but of course I MUST …”

Moondragon is telepathic, which is a shame, because everyone gets to hear her thoughts as her soliloquy sharpens into a jagged shrieking.

“No! The ideas, they come too QUICKLY! No sooner has an inspiration formed than three more take its place! I know everything! I understand everything! I … I … am … “

“… lost … “

Moondragon falls into a heap, her green robes collapsing around her.

Everyone else stands there with a great oceanic roaring in their ears, eyes, minds and memories, until eventually someone starts to notice the world around them again, prioritizing the specific above the general.

Unfortunately, it’s Battle Beast.

Spider-Man recovers from Total Cosmic Awareness in time to see white fangs streaking toward his face!

Ant-Man blinks the golden fog out of his head. It was a little like the Quantum Infinity, actually.

But his ants, though very literal-minded, are still out of it.

Friendly Lightning

But the Red Skull shall not meet his devious goal. Not if Wanda can help it. She aims the Evil Eye at the Red Skull while diving down in a flutter of red satin to seize the red stone once more.

The moment the red stone leaves Wanda's hand, Storm raises a wind to catch it.

She's not necessarily eager to touch it, but she does try to whoosh it away from the Red Skull.

Owing to her concern for the scruffy yet sensitive and manly Star-Lord, she does not pinpoint-control the winds (hard to raise in any case, as Hala practices planetary weather control) and the red stone skitters across the pavement, then up into the air, then drops.

The Red Skull and Scarlet Witch reach the stone at the exact same instant.

The Red Skull is hit by lightning. The Scarlet Witch is also hit by lightning. Both fasten on the stone at the moment their every sense and nerve explodes with blazing light, deafening sound, numbing electrical tingles and even a slight smell of baking soda.

Wanda is in rapport with the Red Skull's mind. He is willing himself to survive long enough to pull down his enemies (an alien, a black woman, a Slav/Gypsy, and an insolent American), even though he himself dies in the process. Therefore, he will turn his rage outward, willing the jewel to make everyone attack everyone else WHILE boiling forth a wave, nay, a sphere of unfocused red force to burn, twist and eradicate everything it can reach!

Because these thoughts are linked, everyone hit by the blast will get very very angry just as they explode. So the anger part won't really register.

Storm picks up the purple stone on the first bounce. She is flooded with the awareness that this is the Love Stone, the Heart of the Universe, and that everyone is truly worthy of love. Yes, even Thanos, for whom Love is the engine driving him to ruin.

The purple energy enfolds Storm like a cloak. She can direct it like a force-beam, use it to enhance her already formidable weather powers, or spread it far and wide, bringing love and joy to anyone she chooses.

And she can even use it to heal wounds, but only if it is done in a spirit of love.

Two McGuffins in One Hand!

Ant Man throws a cylinder of biting fire ants at Thanos, ordering them to bite Thanos in the hand and face and recover the mind gem. And crawl in his ears.

While completely halted, as he was ordered to be, therefore not moving his feet, Spider-Man, who was not ordered to hold perfectly still, curls his two middle fingers, presses the webshooter button, and snags the space gem and jerks it into his spidery, sticky hand.

Possessed of one-sixth of absolute power (or absolutely possessed of one important aspect of absolute power), Spider-Man commands the space gem to decrease the space occupied by the mind gem and make it smaller until it falls out of the clamp holding it to the gauntlet and falls out.

But it does not! Apparently the Mind Gem cannot affect the Space Gem.

Thanos uses the Mind Gem to command Spider-Man to "give me that!" and Spidey, betrayed by his lightning speed of thought and action, does just that.

Ant Man had his moves all planned out for when he got the Mind Gem. But he didn't, owing to the unsuspected fact that Infinity Gems cannot directly affect one another (as, in fact, Storm and the Scarlet Witch are discovering at this moment in another galaxy!)

Thanos makes a fist, cloaking himself in blue energy, and vanishes. Scratching and slapping at his face and ears.

However, Spidey is darned fast, and still at liberty to move as long as he halts. Thanos really should start using less ambiguous language. And therefore, it is possible that Spider-Man (probably not Ant-Man, as the only thing Ant-Man can do at finger-snapping speed is command his ants) can prevent Thanos from escaping!

However, the heroes might have other actions they'd prefer. Because the leonine and muscular Battle Beast, torn and tattered from his fight, is lunging up behind Spidey to smash him with his Battle Club, while Moondragon the bald woman is using her mind to command Ant-Man to "show yourself, disarming at the same time."

Oh, and Xxan Xxar has unfolded a trapezoidal antenna which confuses and disorients Ant-Man's ants, while Gorgax the petrifier is waving his arms antically, trying to meet Spider-Man's eyes.

Gorgax and Battle Beast register as danger to Spider-Man's spider-sense. The other two are not a danger to him, specifically, although Ant-Man's probably not real happy with them.

Who Knows What Anguish Lurks In The Heart of the Beast?

Sue storm turns invisible, moves to one side, and puts a forcefield around the head of the wolf, so that no air can reach his nose. Also, it should prevent him from breathing. Or running. 

She also draws her fantastic flare gun to call her comrades, before realizing that this will not work. Then she frowns (invisibly) and shoots the gyro-jet powered rocket bullet into the wolf's chest. 

Sue is a girl, and therefore fights mean. No one can see her.

The Man-Beast snuffles, puzzled, before snarling and ripping the invisible force field open with orange force-field jaws.

Then it howls, shot in the chest with a rocket bullet!

A blast of flame, then another, then a third, explode within the Man-Beast's body! These are the three fireworks loads which form the blazing number "4" when they are in the air, as designed, and not in a rib cage. Reed didn't envision this eventuality ...

... or did he? Because it sure does do the job!

The Man-Beast collapses, mortally wounded. But instead of dying, he reverts to his other life, changing into a handsome tall man still wearing the Man-Beast's one-piece leotard with bare arms and legs. 

The orange jewel sinks into his head, covered over by new, healthy skin.

And Sue has to suppress a gasp as she recognizes the man in whom the Man-Beast lurks ... it is John Jameson, a fellow astronaut and graduate of Huntsville Class of '61!

John was lost in a deep space probe attempting to orbit the planet Venus years ago! Could some strange destiny have drawn him here, to the far side of the Sun, and cursed him with the jewel which transforms him into the brutish Man-Beast when the moon shines upon the fields of the night?

Yes. It seems that it could, in fact, have done so.

Purple Vs. Red! AND ONLY ONE SHALL STAND!

Storm grabs Star Lord's arm when he raises it. "No! She's on our side. She just is suffering from wrath overload."

"But she's right! Freaking out and breaking people IS the way. They've so got it coming!" says Star-Lord, red sparkles sparkling in his eyes.

Storm says, "Indeed. She is awesome. And that is one of the other gems your talking rocket mentioned. Let's join her and see if there is any way your gem can protect her from the influence of that one."

"Uh, lady?" says Star-Lord. "Over here ... maybe we can help you."

The Scarlet Witch turns, furiously, lining up Star-Lord in her sights.

But Wanda remembers the amazing purple eyes of the hero in front of her and is loath to kill such a spectacularly engaging person.

"It's working," says Star-Lord. "This happens a lot, actually. I've got the gift ...

Besides, Wanda notices that the citizens rose up and are not taking out the tyrant as she asked but rather appear furious with one another and on the edge of a civil war.

And, she's lived through one of those in her own beloved country. Brother against sister against mother against father sometimes. It was horrible. It was... worse than than the Nazis, for that is a named evil that could be defeated. The rifts in families, even after the fighting ceased, would continue for generations.

That must not be. So many lives ruined. So many children left vulnerable to evil forces.

As she can withdraw her normal powers when they have had their desired effect, so she pulls back the tide of irrational madness from those around her, back into the gem from whence it came.

The red stone resists, wanting to rend and slay! But the purple stone soothes the Scarlet Witch, enough that she can draw the wrath back into the stone.

It still pulses, redly. It's pretty angry.

"Okay, that's good. You're doing good, lady," says Star-Lord. "Now why don't you put the rock down, so it won't annoy you any more ..."

KABLAM!

A zap of blue plasma energy smacks Wanda in the hand, sending the Wrath Stone skidding from her grasp! Her hand is burned, but still there.

The Red Skull rushes across the square, holding one hand over his injured eye and firing his plasma-blaster with the other!

He's running to get the Red Stone, obviously, but his shots are well-aimed. He hits Star-Lord right in the chest, causing the starlost traveller to spin around in a puff of smoke, dropping the purple stone as he clutches his chest!

The Skull is about to shoot Storm when a golden rainbow of sparkling effulgence slides around the buildings fronting the square, with Captain Mar-Vell gliding along it!

The Skull shifts his aim and shoots Mar-Vell twice. Mar-Vell blocks each shot with his black metal armbands, which redirect the bolts to another part of the cosmos.

Nonetheless, the Skull is only a step from his goal!

Right In the Skull

Storm thinks,

He's soooooo cute!!!

Oh. Wait. What a jerk.

But...isn't "What a jerk" what women think about men who are cute? Maybe I'm still under...

Really? No point in going there.

She pulls herself together.

"Can that gem you keep so casually in your back pocket help stop Thanos?"

"Ah ... Thanos? We were actually pretty sure, that, no. We try it on Thanos he's probably got some cosmic whammy that will kill us all every hour on the hour for a week," temporizes Star-Lord. "Now, Rocket has this theory that there's five more of these jewels, and if we steal two or three more of them, well, THEN we can put old purple-chins back in his box."

Storm points at the Red Skull and says, "Bad guy at five o'clock. Let's try it out on him!"

"Is that the ACTUAL Red Skull?" gapes Star-Lord. "From the Saturday morning cartoons?"

The Scarlet Witch's eyes glow with fury and she unleashes a torrent of Slavic syllables. Roughly translated:

"You ignoble savage! You wish for the Destruction? You shall be paid in kind.

She rises above the crowd of Kree--and out of the Red Skull's immediate range. Yes, she's wearing THAT outfit. Including the spike heels.

"Break off your mental chains and destroy this man who would bind your souls!"

(She and Doom should probably never be introduced.)

She aims the Evil Eye at the unfortunates and spin-kicks a high-heeled boot into the Red Skull's head, tearing the Wrath stone from his hand.

With the Wrath Stone in her right hand and the Evil Eye in her other, Wanda now has all the rage-producing artifacts on the entire planet Hala. And the wrath is too strong for her to resist, especially given how angry she was at the Red Skull, and at Death in general!

"And who's that?" says Star-Lord, who was worlds away when the Avengers were formed.

Waves of red destructive passion pour from Wanda’s eyes like thunderclouds. Everyone in the square becomes paralyzed with rage, their heads jerking left and right, eyes bugging out, unable to decide whom to punch out first, like a donkey between two really annoying jerks!

“HOH-kay,” decides Star-Lord. “She’s evil.”

He whips up the Purple Stone to aim at the Scarlet Witch.

As soon as he aims it at her, the Wrath Stone sparkles. The Purple Stone also sparkles. When they are turned on each other, they affect each other.

Wanda sees a red halo of vengeance envelop Star-Lord, whom she could obliterate with but a thought.

And Star-Lord? There is no telling exactly what he sees, but his scruffy stubbled jaw does drop open in amazement.

“She’s AWESOME,” he declares softly.