Thor
Thor cradled the body of his beloved younger brother among the smoking ruins of the Valhalla and wept. Nearby lay the bodies of his dead friends, the ones he couldn't save: Heimdall, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, right next to the corpses of his parents. All of their dead eyes stared at him in accusation, in judgement.
Why Thor, he heard them whisper. Why did you let us die? Now you'll be all alone. You're a failure as a man and a hero.
"I'm s-sorry," he sobbed, his voice breaking. "I tried..."
The smoke cleared to reveal more bodies, more dead. Stark. Steve. The rest of the Avengers. The Guardians of the Galaxy. Valkyrie, Sif, Korg. The Asgardians who managed to survive Ragnarok. His sister by marriage. The legions and legions of faceless corpses all glaring at him through a thin curtain of dust, a reminder of his failure to stop a mad man from murdering half of the universe.
You didn't try hard enough. You should have been stronger, faster...
"I'm sorry," he wept harder, so much that his chest ached. "I am so sorry..."
"Thor?"
The voice snapped him out of his weeping and he looked up to see Loki standing there staring at him with an extremely baffled expression.
But...Loki was dead. He was cradling his brother's body here in his arms. He had failed them. He had-Was this perhaps Loki's specter, come to punish him? That had to be it. He looked at the figure expectantly, awaiting his penance.
"For the love of Yggdrasil, Thor, snap out of it. Yes, it's me! Yes, I'm alive, and you know it! Or was it a figment of your imagination who dragged you home last week after you overindulged in Lion's Head ale with that half-blood from Zeus's court?"
It certainly sounded as testy as Loki could get at times when he was acting like being nice to his brother was just the most burdensome task imaginable.
"Thor, if you don't stop hugging that corpse, I swear I will do what we did as children and tie you up in mother's drapes to drag you across this battlefield. I imagine she will resurrect herself just to scream at us about ruining her décor."
Thor stared at Loki, despair slowly giving way to irritation. "There are no drapes here for you to follow through on your threat."
"I am certain if I look hard enough, I will find something."
Loki was still staring at him, hands on his hips, wearing the most annoyed expression Thor had ever seen him possess. And Thor had seen Loki annoyed and pissed off a LOT. "I'm the oldest!"
"Then get up and start acting like it, you oaf!" Loki snapped at him.
Irritation gave way to a desire to wrap his hands around his brother's scrawny neck and strangle him. The corpse that had been in Thor's arms was forgotten. So were all the other bodies, and the whispers vanished. Thor stood up and glared, then he checked himself. "Loki?" He asked uncertainly.
"How many times must I say it? Yes, it's me! I am here, I am alive, and I am trying to get you out of here!" Loki turned his back and started walking. "Now, if you are so inclined to kneel on the ground all day weeping, I will not stop you. I, however, intend to stop the Beyonder."
Thor's hands tightened into fists. Growling under his breath, he hurried into step beside Loki.
This was all an illusion? A trick? This was some fantasy the Beyonder conjured up to break him? It had been so real, and he had felt...oh he was pissed.
Surely Loki must have ended up in a nightmare of his own. "So how did you break out?"
"The Beyonder presented me with an illusion that was so obviously an illusion it was laughable," Loki explained in a haughty voice.
"What was the illusion?" Although Thor could guess.
"Tracy, and it said things to me that she never would." Thor knew that wobble in Loki's voice though. Whatever the illusion said to him really got to him and he was in denial about it.
"What did she say?"
"That is between my wife and myself," Loki snapped.
Oh yes. The illusion pushed some buttons. But Loki wasn't going to admit it without hours of drinking and wearing him down so that he'd talk, and that was time they didn't have. Thor let it go, for now. "So, you figured out you were being tricked. That still does not explain how-"
"These dream realms the Beyonder has us trapped in are connected. I simply had to find the right door and follow the path that led to you." Loki stepped up to just such a door, set in a wall of The Valhalla that somehow didn't get blown up. He set his hand on it and pushed. It swung open to reveal darkness. "After you."
"A path? I can't even see anything," Thor looked around, but all he could see was black, which he reluctantly stepped into. At least on that illusion Valhalla he could tell which way was up.
"I can. Straight ahead. I am not sure who this will lead to. I barely know them, which means it is one of the people we met very recently."
"If it's the man from Latveria, can we just leave him?" Thor saw the look on Loki's face. "You would have laughed at that once upon a time. Tracy's been too much of an influence on you."
"I would not have laughed." Loki's jaw was tight.
"You would have found it hilarious!"
"Would not."
"Would too."
"Not."
"Too."
"Guys!" An irritated male voice popped up out of the darkness. "Do I have to separate you two? You're worse than me and Steven when we get going!"
Both gods starred dumbstruck at Marc, another person who lived in the Moon Knight system, dressed in the ceremonial garbs that priests of Khonshu wore, who had just approached them. Thor spoke first "How...?"
"We were coming to get you," Loki said.
Marc shrugged it off. "I've already been through my worst nightmare. Steven and I worked through that trauma. Been there, done that, so what the Beyonder tried didn't work on us. I broke out no problem."
The Asgardians continued to stare. Thor was actually pretty impressed. He thought Loki might have been as well, but he knew his brother wouldn't say it.
"C'mon, snap out of it. Are we gonna get the others or what?" Marc walked past the two of them. Thor and Loki glanced at one another, then followed.
"For the record," Loki growled. "That wasn't Tracy's influence. She would probably agree with you about leaving the Latverian."
"And you would have laughed with her," Thor pointed out.
"I would n-"
"Cut it out!" Marc called back.
Thor's heart ached for the wizard who was being forced to watch the girl drown in the frozen lake. He knew this was the past, it was a memory and he couldn't change anything, but he still itched to smash through the ice and save her. A restraining touch from Loki held him back.
He knew Stephen's name of course, but thanks to their initial encounter, Dr. Strange would always be "the wizard" to him. Until now, he really hadn't known the man that well but watching his heart-shattering grief at whom Thor discovered had been his sister dying...that was tough, and Thor had a new appreciation for the man and what all he had been through.
Stephen was on his knees on the snow-covered shore, tears falling down his face, which was twisted in anguish. Marc was slowly and carefully approaching him. "Say, Doc? Um, I know this is a bad time, but...you know this isn't real, right? You know the Beyonder is messing with you?"
Stephen didn't answer for a couple of minutes. He squeezed his eyes closed. "I know, Marc. I know, but seeing it again...it still..."
"Doc, I understand. Believe me, I do. Did Steven tell you we had a brother?" Stephen looked at Marc, and Thor understood the men were realizing they had a shared pain.
Well, didn't he, for five years, when he thought Loki was lost to him forever? Thor knew that the agony of losing a sibling was incomparable.
"C'mon, Doc. Let's go kick this guy's ass."
Stephen stood up, dusting himself off. The lapels of the cloak moved to wipe away his tears, but Stephen muttered an annoyed "Stop that" to the garment.
"So, who is next?" Thor asked Loki.
"Can't believe Reindeer Games saw me cry," Tony grumbled. "One side, Imhotep," he warned Marc as he stormed out of the mindscape he'd been trapped in.
"I don't know what you're complaining about. I had to not only see you naked, but tied in a position where I saw much more of you than I ever wanted to see!" Loki snarled after him.
"To think that we argued with Loki over which of us was better equipped to handle this," Stephen mused. "That's one argument I'm glad I lost."
Thor had to agree with that sentiment.
"Well," Loki stated as he gazed at a masked and stoic Winter Soldier standing in his cyro chamber. "I know I am not my wife. But you are aware of what she would say if she saw you standing here feeling sorry for yourself?"
The Winter Soldier yanked off his mask, then looked down at it as his hands fiddled with it. He looked embarrassed. "She would kick my ass," Bucky muttered.
"Yes. Yes, she would. And I would cheer her on," Loki added without an ounce of sympathy.
Bucky stepped out of the chamber calmly. Then he turned around and started kicking the stuffing out of it. Frozen nitro sprayed over everything as pipes and wiring broke.
"Shall we stop him?" Thor asked Stephen and Tony in concern as the men watched.
"Nah, I think it's doing Manchurian Candidate some good," Tony answered.
The monarch of Latveria narrowed his eyes through his mask as he glared at the God of Thunder. "You will speak of this to no one."
"You have my word," Thor responded, even as he wondered what Loki's reaction would be when he told his brother about this...
"Mr. Stark!" Tony almost had the wind knocked out of him when Peter ran up and grabbed him in a tackle hug. "You're alive!"
Thor had found the Man of Spiders weeping over the body of his mentor and surrogate father figure, and upon showing Peter that it was an illusion and Tony was alive, Peter started crying harder. The young man's anguish and grief had been gut wrenching to witness and even Thor himself had been ready to cry right along with him. Not that he would ever admit it to anyone.
Tony hugged Peter back. "Okay, he made the kid cry. Gloves are off."
Steve
Steve's prayer was interrupted, or rather answered, by Michael herself who greeted him with "We are already aware of the situation, Steve Rogers."
He turned in his chair after opening his eyes. Michael presented as a tall, regal woman with skin the color of milk chocolate, wild course black hair with streaks of gold, and gold eyes. Her wings were a dazzling display of fiery colors... starting red at the shoulders and upper curves, they began a gradual fade into various shades of oranges, golds, and yellows. When she unfurled them about her form, she looked like a goddess wreathed in flame.
Too bad that she was so cold that just being in the same room with her was enough to leave a film of frost on a man's balls.
"So, you know our people are missing?"
"Gabriel is among them," Michael answered. "The vanishing of an archangel is not something that goes unnoticed. It has caused a small amount of consternation in the Silver City. The last time an archangel vanished from our collective awareness, it was Raphael and we know what happened to them. Losing another archangel would be unfortunate."
Unfortunate. Forget frost, Steve's balls were encased in solid ice. Or at least it felt like it. "So, you don't know where he is."
"No. He was still alive right before he vanished...however, so was Raphael."
No concern, no wobble in her voice speaking of her lost brother, she might have been talking about losing a second ice cream cone. On second thought, a kid losing an ice cream cone would have at least cried. "Are you planning on going to Kamar Taj, where the Beyonder was last located?"
"Perhaps," Michael's eyes narrowed slightly. "Why do you ask?"
"I want you to take me with you."
Michael's eyes flicked pointedly to his bum leg, scanned him from head to toe, and then she stared straight at him. He could almost see a hint of disbelief in those eyes. Almost. "I do not believe..."
"Then I want to see Tracy."
Michael didn't even blink. "You know humans are forbidden from-"
"I am not asking you to take me to the Silver City. I am telling you I will see Tracy."
"You cannot. She cannot leave her post at this time."
"Bullshit."
Michael tilted her head slightly, her only indication of any type of surprise at such language coming out of his mouth.
"She's in even worse shape than she was when I last saw her, isn't she? Tell me, is she going to make it through the next month?"
Michael didn't say anything.
"The next week?"
Nothing.
"The rest of this week?"
Her silence said it all.
"Then take me to the Beyonder. Now."
Stephen
Like Loki and Marc, Gabriel had managed to free themselves, but they were very tight lipped about what the Beyonder did to them. Most of the others assumed it was perhaps because they were an angel, angels felt no emotion, therefore angels didn't fear anything, but Stephen could see the tension in the divine being's shoulders and knew that wasn't the case. Still, he was the wrong type of doctor to tackle those issues, so he left it alone when the archangel joined them to free the others.
It had taken a lot of time, but they got everyone, including all the sorcerers of Kamar Taj who had been caught up in the Beyonder's games. So, they were no longer trapped in their personal hells, but they were still stuck in whatever void the Beyonder sent them to.
"So, any ideas? Cause I'm all out," Stark announced, looking around in vain for a place to sit. Finding none, he tried lowering himself to his haunches, winced when he bent his knees, and straightened back up.
"I'm fresh out of ideas," Icarus spoke up. "I exhausted them weeks ago. All that's left is anger, exhaustion, and an overwhelming urge to beat the Beyonder to a pulp."
"Icarus," Ajak warned. He just kept pacing.
"Do not censure him, Lady Ajak. I echo his sentiment. The Beyonder indeed needs to be beaten to a pulp."
"And how exactly do you plan to do that?" Loki asked Thor. "Look at what he did to all of us, and we're still trapped!"
"I grow weary of this," Doom spoke up, then said in a louder voice that carried through the darkness. "Beyonder! Are you so much of a coward that the only way you can fight us is by banishing us to this mere chessboard? Enough with these games, face us like the god you supposedly are!"
The silence was deafening. "Nice try, Nick Chopper, but I don't think that's going to work a second time," Tony pointed out.
"Oh, you read those books? I met Mr. Baum. Nice man, but I didn't agree with his views on the Native Americans," Sprite piped up.
"Let's focus, please," Stephen said, trying to get everyone back on track. Obviously calling the Beyonder out again wasn't going to work and he wasn't sure why Doom tried it other than the fact that the man loved the sound of his own voice.
"Perhaps if we were all to combine our magic, we will be able to break out of here," Wong suggested.
"Finally, someone sensible," Loki replied. "The only problem will be if it backfires on us."
"It's worth a shot," Stephen sighed. "We have nothing to lose."
"Just the multiverse," Tony muttered.
Stephen really didn't see an alternative, so he gathered with Wong, Loki, and Doom. The other sorcerers of Kamaj Taj closed in to lend their magics as well. But before anyone could so much as breathe an incantation...
"Oh," the Beyonder's voice shook the darkness. "I am just getting started, Victor von Doom. You want to see godlike power at work? Your wish is my command."
Stephen felt the ground shift and then the darkness slowly faded away. Light built up, and it took his eyes a few minutes to adjust.
When they finally did, and he saw what awaited them all now, he found himself wishing he could go back to that frozen pond near his childhood home.
Derrick
Being a former archangel had its perks. The Silver City was closed to everyone except for angels and gods. While they were no longer an angel and technically had no business being here, the archangels made an exception for them.
They could feel the drain on themselves even here. Even Heaven wasn't truly a safe place for them anymore, which is why they only ever visited instead of making it a permanent home. The only place that was truly safe for them was Sanctuary, but Derrick refused to become a homebound invalid so even though they took a huge risk whenever they left, they did it. Derrick may not be an angel anymore, but they were still immortal, and they were damned if they would spend eternity being a lonely agoraphobe.
After all, they had spent their entire lives being part of a collective. Whether the rest of the angels wanted to admit it or not, they were a social species and valued connections. Indeed, Derrick had loved each and every one of the friends they had made over the past several centuries, mortal and otherwise. Which was why they were visiting one of those friends now.
Too bad they couldn't even reach forward and hold her hand. Derrick watched as the baby angel they had started tutoring stared straight ahead, her knuckles white as she grasped the arms of the chair. Beads of sweat adorned her brow. She was so thin, and her skin so pale, that Derrick could make out every vein.
She was wasting away, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The archangels were trying. Even now, Remiel and Metatron flanked her, feeding their power into her. It was doing no good. If anything, they were making matters worse.
Her internal organs were starting to shut down. Her bones were becoming as brittle as eggshells. If she lived to see the outcome of the battle currently going on with the Beyonder, it would be nothing short of a miracle...but angels could work miracles, right? That's what the mortals kept saying anyway.
The mortals got so many things wrong about them.
Tracy didn't speak, her only acknowledgement of their presence a brief moment of eye contact, before she went back to concentrating on using her empathy to maintain a shield fueled by emotion.
"Hang in there, hun," Derrick murmured, just before Sariel opened a portal to take them back to Sanctuary. "You need to hold on long enough to get your emotions back so you can reunite with your husband."
And there would be a reunion. This universe would not die. Derrick wouldn't allow themselves to believe anything less.