Until The End

The Himalayas

There were thousands of energy streaks flying in every direction. To someone without experience with such situations, it could have understandably been overwhelming. However, the Avengers and the X-Men had experience. For the Avengers, they harked back to the Battle of Manhattan against Loki and the Chitauri. For the X-Men, they recalled their many dealings with the Shi'ar Empire, a race of humanoid aliens evolved from birds.

Professor Xavier was the consort to Shi'ar Empress Lilandra. They received a distress call from her around a year and a half ago. Lilandra's brother, D'Ken, was threatening the universe with his abusive use of the M'Kraan Crystal, a powerful artifact rumored to house the the nexus for all matter and anti-matter in not just this universe, but every universe. It took the combined efforts of the X-Men and the Starjammers, a group of space-pirates led by Cyclops' long thought dead father, Corsair, to thwart D'Ken and save the universe.

While the Kree were a different beast entirely, it was better than going into the battle with no idea what to expect.

"Jocasta, take control of the jets. Everyone, move out! We're on the clock!"

The quinjets jostled slightly, then steadied when Jocasta took over the controls. First, everyone who could fly leaped out of the hatch when it opened. They wasted no time and immediately engaged either the alien ships currently bombarding the inhuman sanctuary or the Kree sentries, depending on what their assignment was.

Once they had all exited, the jets descended and landed in a clear patch of land to allow everyone else to exit and enter the fray.

It was absolute madness.

"Alright, you gutless motherfuckers," Logan snarled as he popped his claws, "let's dance." He roared and dove headfirst into a gaggle of Kree. Behind him were Cyclops, Iron Fist, and She-Hulk.

"Don't hold back!" Luke roared over the chaos. He tore into every Kree around him with his/Wrecker's enchanted crowbar. No matter how big they were or how strong, they were no match for its magically enhanced strength.

The Kree certainly weren't going to be pulling their punches. So close to their goal, and the one thing standing between them and the inhumans were the heroes, they were going to do all in their power to make sure the heroes posed only a temporary obstacle.

There was no sign of Ronan so far. That was good.

Thanks to their phasing ability, Shadowcat, Vision, and Moonstone were making short work of the Kree sentries. So short, that Moonstone had abandoned her assignment in favor of helping out with the ships. Steve noticed and started to reprimand her, but had to dive out of the way of a sudden sword swing that threatened to slice him in half.

He kipped up to his feet in time to block the second one. The Kree was much bigger than he was, but he wasn't that much stronger. They locked weapons, with the Kree grunting with effort. Steve shoved him back and sliced his throat open with a savage shield strike. Instead of making sure he stayed down, he moved on. The edge of his shield was coated with the anti-Kree toxin, so he was sure the Kree was going to die.

He bulldozed his way through a group of Kree foot-soldiers who were trying to surround Zemo, Cyclops, and Hawkeye. Scott finished them off with a wide angle optic blast that left them motionless in a smoking crater.

Zemo shot a pair of Kree that were dangerously close to the sanctuary in the head with a high-powered rifle armed with adamantium bullets.

"They don't get past us," Steve said resolutely. The four of them formed a buffer between the Kree and the inhumans. Any Kree that got within ten feet of the sanctuary was immediately impaled by an arrow ,or gunned or blasted down.

From that vantage point, they could see that the battle was an all-out war. Both sides had advantages that they exploited to the best of their ability. The Kree had numbers, easily outnumbering the heroes more than a hundred to one. The heroes, on the other hand, had strength. With the likes of Storm, Thor, Jean Grey, Ms. Marvel, Iron Man, and others, the Kree's numerical advantage was steadily falling by the minute.

"Lightning! Wind! Heed my cry!" Lightning danced across the pitch black sky, accompanied by hurricane force winds, and struck Kree ships with a fury that only Mother Nature could muster. Missiles and repulsor rays ripped through the alien aircrafts without remorse. Any ships that managed to escape their notice didn't escape Jean or Carol.

Aboard the Kree Warship

Elsewhere, Ant-Man and his team had successfully infiltrated the ship and were quickly making their way deeper inside. It was quiet. There was little doubt that the vast majority of those that had been on the ship before were below battling the others. If they did run into trouble, at least they could count on not being outnumbered by too much. "If this ship is the same as the other one, then its main power thing should be this way," he said quietly.

Winter Soldier, Black Widow, and Wasp followed his lead, weapons and powers at the ready in case they ran into trouble. They didn't see Ronan anywhere in the battle below, which meant that he was still on the ship. That thought sent a cold chill up their spines. They were four of the weakest members, in terms of durability. One hit from his hammer and they were going to nothing more than a smear and a memory. Then again, the likes of Thor and Luke weren't going to last more than one hit from Ronan either; though, that thought did little to assuage their worries.

"Can't you just shrink it from here?" Wasp asked hurriedly. "Going in any further is too risky."

"I have to disable the power source, first," he answered. "Otherwise, they may figure out what happened and find some way to reverse it."

It was a paranoid thought, but in this case, there was no such thing as too paranoid.

A group of Kree quickly rounded the corner onto the same corridor they were sneaking down. "Intruders! Sound the alarm!"

"Shit!" Soldier gunned them down as quickly as his gun would allow, but one managed to get away and slammed his fist on a nearby alarm module before Wasp could blast him.

The lights illuminating the halls turned crimson, followed by a deafening klaxon that alerted every remaining Kree, including Ronan, of their presence.

"Shit! Let's get out of here!"

The four did an about face and sprint back the way they came. Though, halfway, Ant-Man slowed down and started to turn around. "Go on without me. I'll catch up," he yelled.

"Like hell you will!" Wasp grabbed him and shrunk down. Once he was situated on her back, she grabbed the slower Widow by her collar and lifted her up. "Sorry, but we're in a hurry." Soldier was faster than all of them and was already in the hangar bay. Gunfire in the distance revealed that he had run into trouble.

"Hold me steady," Widow ordered. She kept both of her submachine guns trained in front of her. She capped two Kree that were visible through the opening leading to the hangar, giving Wasp a safe way in.

They passed into the hangar and found Soldier outnumbered nearly twenty to one. He was hiding behind a badly damaged ship, with nearly no chance to retaliate without risking being killed.

Wasp let go of her cargo and opened fire on the Kree. A few dropped before they all realized she was there and turned their attention on her. She dipped and weaved around their return fire, but didn't bother trying to fire back. Her only objective was to give Widow and Soldier a chance.

Widow joined Soldier behind his cover and opened fire. With some of the Kree distracted by Wasp, they were able to get their shots off more easily.

The toxin SHIELD provided worked like a charm. Even shots that barely nicked their targets felled them, due to them being infected.

Meanwhile

As the three others were holding off/distracting the Kree, Scott had stolen away and was placing Pym Disks throughout the ship, set with a remotely controlled detonator. Created to shrink normal sized objects to a microscopic size, he hadn't been sure how well they would work on the warship in Bangkok. Turned out they worked well enough in bulk. He hoped and prayed the same happened here.

=Scott, where are you?= Wasp's voice cut in his ear.

He winced. He really hadn't meant to sneak off like that, but this needed to get done and quickly. With them distracting the Kree, he was hoping that he could finish up unnoticed and join them shortly. "I'm almost done."

=Damn it, Scott! I told you to forget about it.=

She sounded angry, as she should have been. He well knew that if he ran into Ronan, he was finished. There was no way he could even dream of a scenario in which he lasted any longer than five seconds. Even knowing that, he had to do it. Cap gave him a mission and he was going to see it through to the end; one way or another. Too many lives were depending on their victory.

He hoped she understood. Actually, he knew that she did, deep down. And he also knew why she was objecting so vehemently, and it wasn't entirely because they were friends.

He first noticed the change in her demeanor around him after Ultron had been defeated and the teams split into three. They were both on the same team, and often paired together due to the similarities in their powers. They were spending so much time together – much more than they had in the years prior to being kidnapped by Hydra – that a mutual attraction sparked between them. Despite that, he never made a move. He wished he hadn't been so skittish about asking her out. There wasn't any risk with them dating, but he figured Janet wouldn't want Cassie to get comfortable with seeing her as a stepmother.

Focus, Scott. Worry about Jan later. He shook his head free of the regrets and moved on. The eastern portion of the ship was prepared, and all he had left was plant a few on the western half. He didn't need to cover every bit; nor did he need the entire ship to shrink. Just enough to render it inoperable. Which he had already done more than well enough.

With that thought in mind, he skidded to a halt and doubled back the way he came. What he had done was good enough. "On my way back."

=Make it fast. We're about to head out.=

He could hear the relief in her voice, but also the anxiety. "Sorry for worrying you."

=Hey, don't worry about it. Just hurry up and get back.=

"You got it." He pumped his legs as fast as he could. The sooner he was back on the jet and out of the warship, the sooner he could breathe a little easier. Being in the same vicinity as Ronan was terrible for his blood pressure. He seriously felt that the very thought of facing Ronan aged him a good decade.

"Terran scum."

His heart stopped, as did his legs. Oh no. Nonononononono. He whirled around to face the source of the voice.

Ronan.

"My patience has worn thin. You terrans have interfered with my affairs for the last time." He pointed his warhammer at Scott. A purple energy blast erupted from the head.

Out of pure instinct, Scott dove to the left and out of the way of the energy blast. It tore clean through the hull, though it was small enough to not cause the ship any serious damage.

He had gotten lucky, but there was no way he was going to be able to keep that up for much longer. He had to think of something, or he was going to die. Cassie, I'm so sorry.

Janet was waiting impatiently for Ant-Man to return. They had made quick work of the Kree crewmen after finding Soldier outnumbered twenty to one. It didn't appear that they had anyone left on board; meaning that everyone else was down below. That was both a good and bad. Good in that they could catch their breathes in relative peace; bad because they were in for the fight of their lives once they joined the battle proper.

=Janet, you and the others get out of here. Right now!=

Hearing his urgent tone, which he almost never adopted, made her heart skip a beat. "What happened?" There was no response, but she could hear him breathing heavily, as if running for his life. Which could have meant only one thing. "Ant-Man? Scott?!"

=GET OUT OF HE—= Ant-Man's comm died.

The harsh screech of audio static filled her ear and sent a cold chill down her spine. Her stomach dropped. Her head started to spin, but she pushed through it all and flew as fast as she could toward the only opening he could have gone down. "SCOTT!"

She was nearly halfway down the hallway when Ronan rounded the corner. To say he was incensed was the understatement of the millennium. "Oh God."

She wanted to find Scott. She needed to find him. She needed to know he was okay. But, with Ronan striding toward her, the answer was staring her right in the face. "BASTARD!" Eyes full of tears that threatened to fill her goggles, she roared and unleashed an unrelenting barrage.

He didn't even flinch. "I have grown tired of your interference and my patience has worn out!"

"Janet!" Bucky tossed every flash bang he had on him, almost a dozen, at Ronan. They exploded in a flash of white luminescence.

Both Janet and Ronan were blinded and disoriented. She felt a large hand gently pluck her out of the air and carry her away. She assumed – and prayed – that it was either Soldier or Black Widow. Since she was alive this long, it probably was.

"Get us the fuck out of here, Natalia," he said once they were on the quinjet.

"Wait. We have to wait for Scott." Her words squeezed through her tightened throat and sounded warbled.

A massive blast tore through the ship, very narrowly missing the quinjet. Natasha hit the throttle, rocketing them out of the hangar and out of the ship. "He's dead, Janet," she said bluntly.

She didn't want to believe it. It couldn't have been true. "He's not... he can't be." There was no way that son of a bitch had died right after telling her he was on his way back. It wasn't possible.

It seemed that neither Natasha nor Bucky wanted to argue, as neither of them said another word to her. Either that, or they were too concerned with what was happening below them to give her denial any thought. The effects of the flash bangs began to gradually wear off. Janet opened her eyes and was greeted by a blurry world that was still very clearly entrenched in complete chaos. From what she could tell, the Kree still had strong numbers, but they were greatly diminished from where they had been before.

They had work to do. Work that could distract her from losing one of her closest friends. It was going to stop her from thinking about the terrible pain in her chest, like someone had just ripped her heart out. Scott was just her friend. Why did it hurt so much? She had lost friends before, and their deaths ate away at her, but never like this. Scott, why? Why did you leave before I could tell you?

A/N: Two weeks.