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.