Battle of Wakanda

"You are in Wakanda now. Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood." "We... have blood to spare."

- T'Challa and Proxima Midnight

The Battle of Wakanda was an open confrontation that pitted the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Wakandan armies and their allies against the Outriders, the remaining members of the Black Order, and eventually, Thanos himself.

Background
"Evacuate the city. Engage all defenses. And get this man a shield."

- T'Challa

After Vision was damaged by Corvus Glaive, Steve Rogers and his team, with the addition of War Machine and Bruce Banner, sought the help of Shuri to separate the Mind Stone from Vision so that Wanda Maximoff could destroy it. Arriving at Wakanda, the Avengers were greeted by T'Challa and Rogers was reunited with his old friend, Bucky Barnes. Banner and Shuri discussed on how to safely remove Vision's Mind Stone before a massive alien spaceship crashed on Wakanda's borders, signifying the arrival of the enemy. In order to buy time for Shuri to remove the Infinity Stone, T'Challa ordered the city to be evacuated, the preparation of the city's defenses, and for Roger's to be given a vibranium shield. Rogers' team, with Bruce Banner using a Hulkbuster armor, T'Challa, Barnes, the Dora Milaje, Wakanda's King's Guard, the Jabari Tribe, and the remainder of the Border Tribe prepared to face Thanos' army.

Battle
"Thanos will have that stone." "That's not gonna happen."

- Proxima Midnight and Steve Rogers

Rogers, Black Widow, and T'Challa went to face Proxima Midnight and Cull Obsidian. Black Widow inquired where Corvus Glaive was, and Midnight intimated that he was dead. Finding their opponent nonnegotiable, the trio rejoined the rest of the army as they prepared for alien invaders.

Countless alien soldiers began pouring out from the ship and charging into Wakanda's barrier force field. Despite killing numerous amounts of them, more and more began to force themselves through the barrier, before being quickly dispatched by the allied army. To prevent them from flanking their position and reaching Vision, T'Challa ordered the shield wall lowered to funnel the enemy towards them. Falcon and War Machine used their aerial agility and technology to great effect, while the Avengers battled the Outriders.

As the battle intensified, Thor used the newly forged Stormbreaker to summon the Bifrost, transporting himself, Rocket Raccoon and Groot to the Wakandan battlefield. They arrived not a moment too soon, as Wakanda's forces were on the verge of being overwhelmed by Thanos' army. Equipped with his new weapon, Thor quickly took out vast numbers of Outriders, turning the tide of the battle.

Seeing that their forces were still struggling against the Outrider onslaught and with the sudden arrival of Outrider reinforcements in the form of bladed tanks, Wanda leapt onto the battlefield and stopped several tanks before they could reach Black Widow and Okoye. She then threw several onto the Outriders charging towards the team, instantly eliminating a massive portion of Thanos' army.

Unbeknownst to everyone, Corvus Glaive had infiltrated Wakanda. Once informed by Proxima Midnight that Wanda was on the battlefield, leaving Vision unprotected, he launched his attack. While Ayo held him off, Shuri managed to shut down the work and enabled Vision to flee. Firing her gauntlets at Glaive, Shuri was nonetheless quickly incapacitated. Vision then confronted Glaive, with their fight bringing them to the battlefield. Meanwhile, Banner engaged Cull Obsidian in a ferocious fight, while simultaneously attempting to bring out the Hulk, to no avail. Banner was nonetheless able to use the Hulkbuster's severed left arm to kill Obsidian by trapping his arm in it and then activating the inbuilt thruster to send him crashing into the Wakandan defense shield. At the same time, Wanda was ambushed by Proxima Midnight, who threatened her with a lonely death before Widow and Okoye appeared as reinforcements. Meanwhile, Captain America engaged Corvus Glaive in battle to give Vision time to escape. As Glaive overpowers Rogers, Vision saves him by killing Glaive with his own glaive.

After a lengthy three-on-one battle between Proxima Midnight and Wanda, Black Widow, and Okoye, Midnight began to gain the upper hand against Widow. Wanda, however, stopped Midnight from killing Widow by throwing her into the path of a tank passing overhead, causing Midnight to be gruesomely shredded. Following this, she quickly returned to Vision's side and tended to him.

Suddenly, Vision sensed through the Mind Stone that Thanos was on the way, as he had defeated the heroes on Titan and acquired the Time Stone, thus nearly completing the Infinity Gauntlet with only the Mind Stone on Vision's head needed to fulfil his quest. As winds blew hard, Captain America also sensed the approach and ordered every Avenger, Black Panther, Okoye, Barnes and Groot to rally at his position to prepare for the incoming enemy. Finally, a portal opened and Thanos stepped through it, arriving on Wakanda. Now having absolute control over the fabrics of Time, Space, Reality, Soul, and Power and only needing to gain dominion over the fabric of the Mind to achieve his goal, Thanos briefly stared at the remaining heroes as Banner immediately deduced Thanos's identity and the heroes charged at full force to stop him, as Thanos, intent on completing the Gauntlet, began to calmly walk towards his foes.

Vision told Wanda that she must kill him to destroy the stone as he knowing full well the Avengers were no match for Thanos. However, she still refused to do so. Vision began to reason with her, stressing that they had run out of time and that destroying the Mind Stone was the only way to thwart Thanos' plans. He reassured her that he would feel no pain from its destruction. Reluctantly, Wanda unleashed a stream of energy into the stone. Thanos, now having dominion over nearly all fabrics of existence, proved to be single-handedly much more than a match for the heroes and he effortlessly began to overwhelm them. He used the Reality stone to imprison Banner in solid rock and the power stone to swat Rogers aside, before easily stopping T'Challa's attempt to use his energy pulse by gripping him in the shoulder with the Gauntlet to use the Power and Reality Stone to block the nanites in his suit and strip him of his energy source, before slamming him down to the ground to redirect the blast.

Thanos then easily sent Falcon to the ground after calmly withstanding his bullets and casually crushed and twisted the guns of War Machine's armor before simply flinging him away with the Space Stone. The Titan then easily knocked down Barnes soon after with a single shockwave of energy after remaining completely unfazed by his shots, used the Power Stone to stop Okoye's spear and took her down with a shock wave, knocked down and trapped Black Widow with large concrete walls using the Reality Stone, and then easily broke out of Groot's vines while incapacitating him as well.

As Thanos was about to move to Vision, Rogers, determined to buy as much as he could, and to Thanos's shock, desperately charged at him and was able to land a few hits and block the Infinity Gauntlet hand, but it was only temporary as Thanos swiftly dispatched the Super Soldier with a single punch. Wanda then created a separate stream of energy to stall him further, before managing to destroy the stone just as he finally reached them. She was then knocked onto the ground as the stone exploded in its destruction along with Vision. As she lay on the ground, heartbroken, Thanos sympathized with her pain at sacrificing what she most loved, as he too had sacrificed Gamora for the Soul Stone. Wanda bitterly retorted to him that he knew nothing. She then watched in horror as Thanos used the Time Stone to restore Vision with the clear intent to rip the Mind Stone from his head. Before she could stop him, Thanos easily flung her aside and ripped the Mind Stone from Vision's head, killing him a second time. Now in possession of the final Infinity Stone, his gauntlet was completed.

Before he could activate it, however, a vengeful Thor attacked him in a last-minute attempt to stop him and avenge Loki, the Asgardians and everyone else Thanos had killed, driving him into the ground with a powerful lightning blast. Regaining his footing but still surprised, Thanos fired an energy beam at Thor, who charged Stormbreaker with all of his electrical power and hurled it at him. The enchanted axe overpowered the energy beam due to Thanos not using the full potential of the Infinity Gauntlet and buried itself deep in Thanos' chest. Thor proceeded to remind Thanos for ignoring his promise of vengeance while forcing the blade of the axe as deep as he could into Thanos' chest. However, despite being griveously wounded and in severe pain, the Mad Titan was unfazed; he even mocked Thor, saying that he should have "gone for his head", and then proceeded to activate the gauntlet by snapping his fingers, much to Thor's horror.

Aftermath
"What just happened?" "Oh, God."

- War Machine and Steve Rogers

Thanos briefly passed out, and to his great surprise, reawakened in a vast orange void, a world conjured by the Soul Stone. The void was empty, safe for Thanos himself and one building in the distance. The building resembled the same archway on Zen-Whoberi where Thanos and Gamora met many years ago. Sure enough, as Thanos approached the arch, he encountered the child Gamora once again, which was a reflection of her spirit. Thanos excitedly told her that he had finally completed his mission. When Gamora asked "what did it cost?", he became solemn in his demeanor and simply replied, "Everything", regretting that saving the universe required him to sacrifice her, and Gamora sadly smiles.

Regaining normal consciousness, Thanos returned to his body in Wakanda. Upon seeing the damages inflicted on the Gauntlet, Thor furiously questioned Thanos about the finger-snap, but he offered no answers and simply mockingly smirked at Thor, having completed his goal despite Thor's best efforts, before teleporting away with the Space Stone, proving that the Gauntlet can still function.

The consequences of Thanos' actions quickly became apparent: Barnes crumbled into dust in front of Rogers, M'Baku watched as many members of the Wakandan army faded out of existence, Wilson disintegrated into dust in long grass while Rhodes called out to him, T'Challa picked up Okoye, saying it is no place for her to die before disintegrating. Rocket tearfully watched Groot fade away, and Maximoff sadly knelt over Vision's lifeless body before vanishing into dust. Most of the combatants on Titan started to fade away as well, including all of the Guardians, (excluding Nebula), Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, leaving Iron Man and Nebula as the only survivors on Titan. The survivors simply stood around in shock, unable to do anything but accept the reality of Thanos' victory and the consequences it had for them and the rest of the Universe.