Chapter 16: Infinity War I
"You, again." Sylvia growled at Ebony Maw.
"Hear me and rejoice." The alien made his speech, "You are about to die at the hands of the Children of Thanos. Be thankful… that your meaningless lives are now contributing…"
"I'm sorry, Earth is closed today." Mr. Stark interrupted, "You better pack it up and get outta here, Stonekeeper." He said to Strange, "Does this chattering animal speak for you?"
"Certainly not." Strange replied, "I speak for myself. You're trespassing in this city and on this planet." He warned Ebony Maw.
"He means get lost, Squidward." Mr. Stark said seriously. So, there's someone like Voldemort in the Muggle world named "Squidward" …
Dr Banner tried to call Hulk out but failed. She found that her team-mates have grown into the habit of speaking a lot during fights and wondered whether if they were infected by Peter Parker.
"Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards." Mr. Stark said when Dr Banner looked like he was concentrating very hard but did nothing at all. He then showed off his new suit that wrapped his body like liquid metal coming from a diamond-shaped thing on his chest.
"Doctor Banner, if the rest of your green friend won't be joining us…" Dr Strange sighed and made a portal and sent him somewhere else.
Black Dwarf apparently had enough with their pep-talk and raised his huge hammer to smash them. Mr. Stark raised his hand and a metal shield formed from his suit to black it.
"Gotta get that stone outta here, now." Mr. Stark said to Dr Strange.
"It stays with me." The wizard responded.
"I know you've been in fights before, but there isn't usually this much talk." Sylvia couldn't stop herself quoting Hawkeye.
"I know, I know. Bye." Mr. Stark flew away to fight the giant alien named Black Dwarf.
She sighed and turned to face Ebony Maw.
"Tell me, how much Asgardian blood do you have on your hands?" Her loath towards the alien rose in her heart. It was even a bit inappropriate to compare this ugly killer with the Dark Lord. He was nothing like Lord Voldemort. He kills with reason while this alien kills for fun.
"Not a drop would dirty my hands." He rose the earth beneath him to male himself float. He then controlled bricks to turn into small pieces and shot them at the three.
Dr Strange and Wang both made magical portals to avoid the three of them being hit, but there was no need. Sylvia used her earth powers and rearranged the dust into a small but heavy bullet and used her wand to fire it towards Ebony Maw. She set the bullet on fire on the way it went through the air.
The bullet was blocked, of course, but Dr Strange wasn't doing nothing. The wizard used his magic to form a red string and it rushed to tie Ebony and pulled the alien off his balance.
But Ebony grabbed Dr Strange and pushed him to the wall while using bricks to tie his arms.
"Your powers are quaint." Ebony said, moving closer to the wizard, "You must be popular with children." He grabbed the Eye of Agamotto, trying to take the Time Stone out but it burned his hand.
"It a simple spell but quite unbreakable." Dr Strange told him.
"Then I'll take it off your corpse." Ebony controlled wires to tie the wizard up when he tried to activate the Time Stone.
"You'll find removing a dead man's spell troublesome." He retorted.
"You'll only wish you were dead." The alien closed up the wires and took him to the spaceship that looked like a donut, but Dr Strange's magical cape helped him to get away, unconscious.
"No!" Ebony cursed.
Mr. Stark and Parker arrived not long after.
"Kid, that's the wizard. Get on it." Mr. Stark said to Spidey.
"On it!" Parker swinged to get Dr Strange when the spaceship set down a blue light. "Gotcha!"
"Wait!" Parker said, surprised, "Uh, Mr. Stark, I'm being beamed up."
"Hang on, Parker." Sylvia flew to catch up on them.
They got higher and higher into space with the spaceship. Sylvia felt the air getting scarce and knew that these mortals couldn't breathe in oxygen soon.
"Pete, you gotta let go. I'm gonna catch you." Mr. Stark said reassuringly.
"But you said save the wizard!" Parker shouted back. "I can't breathe." He gasped.
"We're too high up. You're running out of air." Mr. Stark replied, explaining.
"Yeah." He panted, struggling to breathe, "That makes sense." He let go of the spaceship and fell down when he couldn't hold any longer. One of Mr. Stark's suit caught him, and the Nanotech metals covered his body. He landed with a perfect spider-move but at the next moment a parachute opened up and he was pulled away.
Sylvia and Mr. Stark landed on the spaceship's outside and got in through a hole. They got in and found Parker in there, too.
"I know what you're gonna say." Mr. Stark sighed, "You should not be here."
"I was gonna go home." Parker tried to explain.
"I don't wanna hear it." Mr. Stark interrupted, but Parker was way more talkative than him.
"But it was such a long way down and I just thought about you on the way…"
"And now I gotta hear it."
"…and kinda stuck to the side of the ship." Parker said seriously, "And this suit is ridiculously intuitive, by the way."
"God damn it." Mr. Stark looked like he wanted to kill himself.
"So, if anything, it's kinda your fault I'm here."
"What did you say?"
"I take that back." Parker said quickly, "And now, I'm here in space." He finished.
"Yeah, right where I didn't want you to be." Mr. Stark started to lecture him, "This isn't Coney Island. This isn't a field trip. This is a one-way ticket. You hear me? Don't pretend you thought this through."
"No, I did think this through."
"You could not have possibly thought this through. You can't be a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man… if there's no neighbourhood." Mr. Stark paused, "Okay, that didn't really make sense, but you know what I'm trying to say."
"Done yet?" Sylvia raised an eyebrow.
"Yep." Mr. Stark sighed, "Come on. We got a situation." He motioned to Ebony and Dr Strange beneath them, "See him down there? He's in trouble. What's your plan?"
Sylvia didn't bother to listen to their useless discussion and set her eyes on what happening down there. Dr Strange was floating in the air with many glass-like sharp pieces around him, some were sticking into him.
She gulped, thinking of the same that happened to Loki when they were on Thanos' ship years back. It had to be very painful, and she understood why Ebony said, "would only wish you were dead".
"Did you ever see this really old movie, Aliens?" Parker was saying. Sylvia had no idea why he would bring a movie up in this, but paid half of her attention.
They went down when Ebony spotted them.
"Painful, aren't they?" The alien gave an evil grin, "They were originally designed for microsurgery. And any one of them… could end your friend's life in an instant."
She knew why now Loki was screaming and yelling when Ebony did this to him. It was the worst torture she ever saw, even worse than Crucio.
"I gotta tell you, he's not really my friend." Mr. Stark said, "Saving his life is more of a professional courtesy."
"You've saved nothing." Ebony said, turning his powers on them, "Your powers are inconsequential compared to mine."
"I wouldn't say so." Sylvia muttered under her breath.
"Yeah," Mr. Stark replied to the alien, "but the kid's seen more movies."
They blasted a hole on the spaceship wall, and it sucked nearly everything it could into space due to the air difference. They nearly didn't manage to pull the person they were saving back inside.
Mr. Stark used his suit to fix the hole when Ebony was out there in space, frozen to death.
The two – Mr. Stark and Dr Strange – chatted again on the matter of who saves who. Sylvia felt she wouldn't stand it anymore.
"Will the two of you just stop?" She hissed, frustrated that the superheroes these days were so childish. It was a wonder how these people could save the universe.
"But you have to understand…" Dr Strange kind of ignored her, "if it comes to saving you or the kid or the girl or the Time Stone… I will not hesitate to let either of you die. I can't, because the universe depends on it." Sylvia really wanted to give a retort on his words, because he gave the stone away in the end anyways.
"Nice." Mr. Stark said, "Good, moral compass. We're straight." He turned to Parker, "All right, kid." He set his arm on both of Parker's shoulders in turn, "You're an Avenger now."
They went to investigate on the controlling system on this spaceship, but Sylvia wasn't up for it because she was a witch, not a scientist.
"Let me just say," Parker spoke up, "if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something… and I eat one of you, I'm sorry." He was hanging down from the ceiling or the ship. She had no idea why he brought this up.
"I do not want another single pop culture reference out of you for the rest of the trip." Thankfully, Mr. Stark stopped this talkative bug, "You understand?"
"I'm trying to say that something is coming." He said quickly.
"He's not lying." Sylvia confirmed.
"Thanos!" Drax, a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, jumped down to them with his daggers. At the same moment, Quill and Mantis arrived.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Spidey shot spider webs while backing away from Mantis, "please don't put your eggs in me!"
Mr. Stark had Drax down and Quill grabbed Parker with his arm. Mantis was tied by Parker's spider webs and Sylvia was blasted away by Quill's bomb.
"Everybody stay where you are." Mr. Stark shouted, "Chill the eff out."
"I'm gonna ask you this one time." Quill said, "Where is Gamora?"
"Yeah." Mr. Stark retorted, "I'll do you one better. Who's Gamora?"
"I'll do you one better." Drax groaned from the floor, "Why is Gamora?"
"Tell me where the girl is, or I swear to you I'm gonna French fry this little freak." Quill held up his gun on Parker's dead.
"Let's do it. You shoot my guy and I'll blast him." Mr. Stark made a huge gun with his suit and pointed that at Drax, "Let's go!" It was easy to tell which one was worse.
"Do it, Quill!" Drax shouted, "I can take it."
"No, he can't take it!" Mantis yelled.
"She's right." Mr. Stark said seriously, "You can't."
"Oh, yeah? You don't wanna tell me where she is?" Quill hissed, "That's fine. I'll kill all four of you and I'll beat it out of Thanos myself." He tightened the grip on Parker, "Starting with you."
"For Merlin's sake, we don't know where Gamora is, let along who she is!" Sylvia rolled her eyes.
"Wait, wait, Thanos?" Mr. Stark looked up, "All right, let me ask you this one time. What master do you serve?"
"What master do I serve?" Quill repeated, "What am I supposed to say, 'Jesus'?"
"You're from Earth." Sylvia clarified, unable to think things straight in their ridiculously idiotic conversation.
"I'm not from Earth, I'm from Missouri." Quill shot back.
"Yeah, that's on Earth, dipshit." Mr. Stark responded, "What are you hassling up for?"
"So, you're not with Thanos?" Dr Strange finally spoke up.
"With Thanos? No, I'm here to kill Thanos. He took my girl." Quill paused, coming to reason, "Wait, who are you?"
"Why didn't you ask that earlier?" Sylvia muttered.
"We're the Avengers, man." Parker said, taking off his helmet.
"Oh." Mantis realized, "You're the ones Thor told us about."
Mr. Stark got the word, "You know Thor?"
"You are the ones who received the message?" Sylvia was surprised.
"Yeah." Quill said, "Tall guy, not that good-looking," Sylvia nearly laughed at that, "needed saving."
"Where is he now?" She asked, worried about the God of Thunder who lost almost everything.
"Making his weapon." Mantis replied as the spaceship arrived a planet.
The surroundings were strangely familiar. Sylvia remembered that this was the planet she and Loki came to when they fell into space. Titan, Thanos' home planet.
"The hell happened to this planet?" Quill frowned, "It's eight degrees off its axis. Gravitational pull is all over the place."
"Yeah, we got one advantage. He's coming to us. We'll use it." Mr. Stark spoke to all of them, "All right, I have a plan. Or at least the beginnings of one. It's pretty simple. We draw him in, pin him down, get what we need. Definitely don't wanna dance with this guy. We just want the gauntlet." He noticed Drax yawning dramatically, "Are you yawning? In the middle of this, while I'm breaking it down? Huh? Did you hear what I said?"
"I stopped listening after you said, 'We need a plan'." Drax admitted, unashamed.
"Okay, Mr. Clean is on his page." Mr. Stark sighed.
"See, 'not winging it' isn't really what they do." Quill told him.
"Uh, what exactly is it that they do?" Mr. Stark asked.
"Kick names, take ass." The unofficial leader of the Guardians replied.
Then, they started talking about unrelated stuff that happens in Muggle world and Sylvia gave up listening. But not long after, the Titan arrived on the planet.
"He's here." She warned the crew.