Chapter 3 Tallus
Disclaimer: The universes and the characters these are based on all belong to Marvel.
Ruckus looked at the rest of the group. "Where the Hell are we now?"
Where indeed? They appeared to be in some burned-out radioactive rubble, like something from Terminator, after Judgment Day.
"Great. So if I fail, then I die - no, I disappear!" shouted Rubique.
"What the Hell?" Ruckus looked at his arm. There was a large shield-like device on his forearm.
"I am the Tallus. In this universe, mankind will destroy itself in war. Bring peace."
"How?" asked Ruckus. No answer.
"How what?" asked Kat.
"How do I bring peace? The Tallus told me we need to bring peace."
"I didn't hear anything!" said Cloak.
Everyone else except for Ruckus agreed that they didn't hear anything.
"Well, this piece of jewelry here talks to me, and apparently to no one else," lamented Ruckus. "I suppose we need some way to know what our mission is."
Suddenly a tall silver man riding a surfboard appeared from the sky and skidded over to the three people.
"Who are you and how did you breach the perimeter of the Northeast US? Galactus has put a shield over it to protect us from the European faction."
"Uh - let's just say that we're not from around here, we mean you no harm, and please explain to us what has gone on in the past, I don't know, fifty years or so," said Ruckus.
It turned out that this universe had had a very strange history. In it, the Dark Phoenix had managed to take over and to devastate over a billion galaxies before being brought to an end by Galactus, who, with the help of every major race in the universe, had absorbed her life force and dispelled it. This absorption also allowed him to become self-sustaining, and his goal was now to protect life rather than to consume it, particularly the planet Earth, from where the human possessed by the Phoenix had come.
Unfortunately, the Phoenix had plunged this entire universe into war, and many races were self-exterminating. Earth was not an exception. A four-sided war had apparently broken out between the American faction, the European faction, the Mid-East African faction, and the Asian faction. Each of these was a conglomeration of allied countries. The American faction consisted of the Americas, both North and South, the European faction consisted of Europe, Russia, and the Mediterranean African countries, the Mid-East African Alliance consisted of the rest of Africa and the Middle east all the way to Central Asian countries (the 'Stans), and the Asian faction consisted of India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia plus some of the Indonesian countries. Apparently Australia had managed to stay neutral.
Originally, Galactus had sided with the American faction, and had shielded them from harm, until they had begun to move too aggressively against the other factions and it became clear that they would use this advantage to wipe them out. Slowly Galactus had allowed more and more of the western hemisphere to become vulnerable, until now he was only protecting Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and New England. He was threatening to remove even that protection unless the people in charge were willing to negotiate rather than attempt to conquer the other factions, but President Doom of the USA, Premier Logan of Canada, President Castro of Cuba, and King Roberto of Brazil, the major powers of the American Alliance, said that they could win without his help if necessary.
The Silver Surfer took the team to Mt. Katahdin in Maine, where Galactus had made his home, after Ruckus had explained that they wanted to help bring peace.
It was strange, very strange, seeing Galactus, a being whom many people had assumed to be a god, sitting on a large throne in a cave in Mt. Katahdin, nursing what appeared to be a headache.
"What do you want, Norrin?" he asked the Silver Surfer.
"I have some guests."
"Yes?"
"Hello, Galactus," said Ruckus. We are a team of people from... somewhere else. Our goal is to make certain that the people of Earth do not wipe themselves out."
Galactus looked at them and laughed. This, he reasoned, was not going to be an easy task for them. Not an easy task at all.