The Séance • Marvel

Endgame: Chapter 08

Vanessa opens her eyes to find herself underground. She is laying on a puddle of water. Her left leg burning as she tries to move, she looks down and she sees that there is a rather deep-looking cut on her upper thigh. "I can't breathe. I can't breathe! I can't breathe" she hears Rocket say. Rhodey gets out of his suit and crawls over to help Rocket. "Vanessa, Rhodey, Rocket, get outta here!" Calls Bruce, who's holding up tons of debris from the collapsing on all of them. 

"Go help Rhodey" Vanessa orders, Jason. He quickly goes over and as soon as he has a corporeal body he lifts the debris as much as he can until Rocket can climb out. There is a sudden sound to Vanessa's left as a large wave of water coming to them. "Mayday, mayday! Does anybody copy? We're in the lower level, it's flooding! We're drowning! Does anybody copy? Mayday!" Rhodey calls out on his comm, but nobody answers.

Vanessa stands up, as the water begins to quickly rise. Out of all the ways that she could've died, drowning always seemed the least likely for her, especially since she knew how to swim. That of course was of no use at this moment. Bruce is still trying to hold up the structure with his one good arm. The water is already up to their necks, and they are breathing for their lives. "See you on the other side," Rhodey says to both Rocket and Vanessa. Rocket whimpers not wanting to die yet. Vanessa, however, has already accepted her faith. She'd seen what happened to those who didn't accept what was coming to them, and she didn't exactly want to be stuck in The Void for the rest of eternity.

Then just as Vanessa is about to close her eyes, she feels something grab her and begin to rise up. She opens her eyes and finds that Scott has enlarged his size and is lifting her, Rhodey, Rocket, and Bruce from under the rubble. She jumps from his hand and onto the ground. She looks around and sees that standing in front of then is Thanos, with his army. Everywhere there are portals opening, and from everywhere there are armies piling in. It's a good thing that she never changed from out of her suit otherwise she would have been very underdressed. Vanessa pulls out her daggers and readies herself to fight. She figures she won't need an army of dead seeing as there are already hundreds of people ready to fight. "AVENGERS! -assemble."

This fight is very different than the one in Wakanda. They have more numbers this time and Vanessa is not in a weakened state from having to share her energy with hundreds of ghosts, like last time. Besides thanks to Nat and all the training she put her through, Vanessa is a deadly fighter with both her daggers or her hands. The soldiers on Thanos' army have more of the anatomy of human's making it easier to kill. 

One of the soldiers swings his sword at Vanessa just as she slides under it. Before he turns she manages to slit his throat from the back. But, as soon as that one is down another one is on its way. "Too late for me to join," says a voice behind her. "You're late Nate," she says without even having to turn as she finishes of another creature. "Yeah, well I like to make a dramatic entrance," he says. Vanessa grabs both of her daggers with one hand, and with the other summons a ball of energy and throws it at him. "Stay close, that isn't going to last too long" she ordered.

Vanessa is in the middle of fighting when she hears the horn of a car. "Is that La Cucaracha?" She asks mostly to herself. "Anyone sees an ugly, brown van up there?" She hears Steve ask through the comms. Vanessa ignores the rest of the conversation as she can hear the car but not see it. Vanessa continues fighting until suddenly the ships begin to fire. 

She is suddenly thrown off her feet, heading to land in a pile of rubble. As she readies herself to summon some ghost to catch her she feels someone grab her and fly off. "Hey bird-man," she says to Sam. "Hey, ghost-girl" he answers with a smile. "Glad to see you again, Sam," she tells him. "Glad to be back. Now don't go off trying to fly again, 'cause I might not be there next." He places her down and begins to fly off again, but before he does he hears, "For your information I had it under control."

Then suddenly the firing stops aiming towards them and begins shooting at something else. "What the hell is this?" Asks Sam. Bright thundering energy comes surging down and flies through the ship, and that results in an explosion and the ship crashing into the lake. "That's hot," says Vanessa. Nate who was standing near Vanessa turns to look at her with a disappointed look. "Right, not the time," she says and runs off to where Carol is picking up the gauntlet. "I don't know how you're gonna get it through all that," says Peter as he passes the gauntlet to her. "Don't worry" says Wanda. "She's got help" finishes Okoye.

Vanessa looks around and sees that she's not the only one headed to help Carol. Pepper lands next to Okoye, followed by Mantis, Shuri, the Wasp, Nebula, and 2014 Gamora. Thanos sends his army to retrieve that gauntlet but is stopped by everyone. Gamora takes out a gorilla, while Okoye takes out Corvus Glaive. Wanda and Valkyrie destroy two leviathans. Carol then makes her way towards the van with the gauntlet, easily evading the blockades. "I have an idea," says Vanessa as she sees Ebony Maw heading her way. "I hate your ideas," says Nate. "I need you to launch me into his direction" she orders Nate. "Nes he has telekinesis powers he'll just swat you away" Nate argues. "I'm counting on it" Vanessa exclaimed. Vanessa puts her daggers in their sheath as she readies herself to run at Nate. Nate readies his hands in order to give her the best distance in his throw, "Go!" he calls out.

Vanessa runs towards him, steps on his hand, and is launched into the air. With her hands free, she summons a ball of energy and gets ready to throw it, but just as expected The Maw just swats her away as if she's nothing. Vanessa still gets the chance and throws the ball of energy, but not at The Maw, at the figure behind him. As soon as the figure materializes, she swings her sword and in one motion decapitates The Maw. As Vanessa is falling towards the ground she summons two ghosts who catch her before she hits the floor. "Thanks, guys." 

"That was impressive," said a voice. Vanessa turned and saw Bucky standing behind her with a sniper gun in his hand. "What summoning ghost to catch me before I fell to my possible death?" "Killing that thing that was pretty impressive," he said. "Thank you," Vanessa said with a smile as she walked away. Nate opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get anything out, Vanessa said, "I don't want to hear it." "I was just going to say good job."

Vanessa continued to fight until the creature standing before her disintegrates. She looks around and sees that The Black Order begins to crumble to ash. "We won," Vanessa says, letting go of any ghost she'd summoned. "Vanessa," Nate says. Vanessa turns when she hears her name to find him pointing at something. Or rather someone. "Oh my god," she says when she sees Tony. 

His entire right side is fatally injured by the gauntlet's energy. He stumbles for a bit until he collapses beside a pile of debris. Vanessa sees as Peter goes up to him and breaks down. Then is gently lead aside to grieve. Pepper places her hand on Tony's Arc Reactor and Tony rests his hand on hers. "We're gonna be okay. You can rest now" she tells him. With that Tony's Arc Reactor flickers off, for good. Pepper starts crying on his shoulder, no longer being able to contain her grief.

Vanessa watches something that nobody else can witness. Tony Stark's soul appears out of his body, a colorful material that flickers in and out. The figure begins to disintegrate in blue light. Around her, one by one all the heroes begin to kneel in honor of Tony. Tony Stark, Iron Man, Earth's Best Defender, was gone. With his life, he saved the entire Universe from any further suffering.