Chapter 32
The locals referred to the place as Heaven's Keel. It was a great slab of white rock, jutting forty feet straight into the air before extending parallel to the moon's surface. Peter Quill liked it because he said it reminded him of Pride Rock. That man knew more pop culture than even those who'd spent their entire lives on Earth. When he thought of a place in the galaxy where he might place the Infinity Gauntlet, where it might be safe from prying eyes, trapped in an unpopulated environment and as far from any crevices as possible, the first thing that came to Clint's mind was Heaven's Keel. Apparently, the Herald who stole the Gauntlet had changed all of that.
The escape pod wasn't easy to direct. Clint struggled against its difficult controls. He crashed, more than landed, on that flat expanse of moon sand at the base of Heaven's Keel. The sand was soft enough to protect him from breaking in half, though his door had fastened shut. His boot came down against the lock, forcing it open. The move managed to budge it by only inches. Clint sighed, sat back, and considered the bundle of arrows in his quiver.
He had few options overall. Reylano and Linnor both supplied him with great solid wood shafts and pounded steel tips. As for his trick arrows, he had only five, two exploding tips, an incendiary, and a pair of sonics. Not even a repelling one among them, should he decide to try and get himself out of a sticky situation. It would take the incendiary to melt his way through the lock on the door, and get him out of the spherical prison.
"An escape pod that I now need to escape from. Somehow, why am I not surprised?" Clint asked himself, pulling out the incendiary tip. He unscrewed it from the carbon shaft, and considered just which seam he wanted to insert it against. The wrong spot, and he'd melt a hole through the casing, but remain trapped.
No sooner had Clint begun to search around, than a face threw itself in front of his glass. His heart jumped into his throat, and his body flew backward against the seat. He placed a hand over his heart to steady his breathing.
"Natasha!" he exclaimed.
The Black Widow smirked. "I see how it is. You run off, plan to go it alone, be Mr. Hero. Well, guess what? I don't buy it. And I think you're full of it, too." Her hand disappeared for a moment, and the pod let out a long, low hiss. The front popped open, and she folded her arms.
"How did you even find me?" Clint asked, climbing out.
"I had Tony put a tracer in your pocket earlier. After all the crap we saw Hank doing, we were worried you might do something nuts; like come here on your own." Natasha stepped back to give him space.
"You put a tracker on me?" Clint reached into his back pocket to feel around for it. Sure enough, he found a small device, hardly larger than a button battery. A little red light on its surface, blinked in a steady, silent rhythm. One of his eyebrows lifted incredulously. He dropped it back into the pod.
"Yeah, I did, thank me later for it." Natasha looked over her shoulder at the slab of rock split only a few feet away.
Once, it had been one long piece of natural granite, existing unchanged for thousands of years. Looking at it now, she could see that vision she'd shared with Rinon welling up all around her. The flat slab of rock had shattered in half. Its pointed end, rooted in the ground below. The solid foundation it had formed from, split hundreds of feet straight down. There existed nothing but a small, long crag of opening over the ledge, created by the halved Heaven's Keel.
The weight of the worlds rested on that lonely crest to nowhere. And with Galactus looming just above their heads, coming closer and closer by the minute, Clint couldn't afford to stand there and merely look at the place where he was meant to die.
He must act. Now, before his courage dwindled, and he refused to go.
He slipped his hand into Natasha's for support. For the second time, she did not repel him. He knew it was strange for her. Natasha never shared such blatant support of him in tender moments and embraces. She simply didn't operate on that level. What played with her emotions now, Clint couldn't hope to know.
Clint took his first step to the base of the Keel. Natasha's hand in his, stopped him instantly. Clint turned.
"We're not doing this," she told him, steadfast. "You aren't going in there."
"Natasha, I have to. You know that as well as anyone."
She let go of him. "I know for a fact, you don't."
Clint's expression changed. They didn't have time to argue, none of them did, not when Galactus was going to swallow up this world and anyone left on it. How Natasha was going to get out, he didn't know. He only had one chance to grab the Gauntlet. Adjust maybe time, maybe even space and the dimension itself. Something to make Galactus and all his power disappear once and for all.
"Tasha, what are you talking about?"
"When you were gone, and I was about to leave the Gateway to find Bruce, one of the Sarhorns came to see me. Clint, he said that Rinon could do something, that it was up to me to change what happens here. I know what you're going to do, Rinon showed it to me. He let me watch the entire thing!" She stepped closer to him again, trying to get him to understand her passion. Natasha had always been ready to die for a cause. She'd never been attached to life, or the people in it. Why she was so desperate now to cling onto her existence, came as much of a surprise to her as it was to Clint.
Clint's eyes narrowed. "Tasha, don't - "
"But - "
Clint grabbed her shoulders, holding her steady in his strong hands. His words shook as he spoke. "I am trying my hardest to keep it together. I don't want to do this. I don't want to lose you, Tony, or anyone. Do you understand? I know what Rinon showed you because I saw it too. I know that his visions don't change. That any time he has ever tried to save someone from a death he saw coming, failed. Everyone he wanted to rescue, died."
Natasha's heart plummeted like a falling elevator car. "I - But Clint, I gave him a tracker. The Sarhorn said he could do something. That this . . ."
"I'm sorry. Nat, I love you, you know that. Steve, T'Challa, Rinon, no one is coming for me. But there is something you can do."
She swallowed, trying to shove her fear down deep where it couldn't surface again. Clint was being a bull-headed idiot, and she knew it. If he had subscribed to this fated hand he'd been dealt, then she hadn't. She wouldn't. She refused to believe something so horrible should happen to him simply because he wanted to save the worlds.
Clint pulled her into his arms, his face buried against her neck, and Natasha felt herself dropping into him. "Please, Tasha. Please don't watch."
Natasha's eyes widened. She tried to pull away from him, but couldn't. Clint held her tighter. He wanted to remember everything about her. The thought, sound, scent, feel, all taken in a single fleeting moment. For the second time in her life, she wished that she was living in a dream that soon she'd awake from. Only this time, it was also déjà vu. Where was Rinon? Steve? Everyone?
Hot tears stream down her neck. It took time for Natasha to realize they didn't belong to her. Clint lifted his head, pressing their foreheads together. He breathed heavily, holding back the emotion threatening to tear him apart.
"I don't want to leave. I don't want to go. Why is this so hard? I thought I'd be ready," He whispered against her. Natasha held his chin in her hands, wishing there was some way to control his overwhelming grief.
:(:):(:):
Dust storms spun up in a whirlwind, and twisted across the desolate landscape. Ships simultaneously lifted up into the thinning expanse of air, and crashed like fiery meteors through the atmosphere. Somewhere, in that emptiness of space above them, the warriors of the universe had converged, only to battle one another with the influence of Galactus' otherworldly Heralds. They must be stopped, destroyed, if anyone hoped to survive the coming darkness sweeping over the land.
Steve climbed out of the escape pod with Fehreh at his side. They'd dropped into the center of an earthen evacuation plan. Dozens of portals simultaneously blinked to life, and shut down as quickly as their creator could form them. On the other side of the universe, Loki hurriedly manufactured the guides to safety. His strength and will could only maintain so many openings all at once. Some collapsed as others opened. Some remained as the people scrambled through them. Utter panic erupted around them.
"Rinon! Did you see him fall?" Fehreh asked him in desperation.
"No, they took the ship," Steve told her, spinning around. "I don't see any sign of him. Clint, either."
"They were just behind us!" Fehreh exclaimed in fear. Her hand clung to her chest. She'd lived these near six years without him, imagining that Rinon, her home, and everyone on it had been laid to waste, never to return to. She refused to do the same again.
Steve shook his head, struggling to see above the retreating masses. "I just . . . I don't know."
"Captain!"
Fehreh and Steve both tracked down the voice calling out to them. There, waving above the crowd, was a face they never expected to see. And, in many ways, never wanted to see.
"T'Challa," Steve breathed.
"Great heavens upon us," Fehreh said.
T'Challa pulled up beside them. His forehead was covered in sweat. He panted, exhausted from the run, "I have found us – a ship – we can go. Track down the others."
"You know we can't do that," Steve was utterly firm in his stance. His chin lifted, chest tight. No, there was nothing he did now that would allow him to obey those ancient words.
The Black Panther shook his head. "What other option do you have? We need to get out of here, now, while there is yet time to get to him. Do you fear I will defy you? That I will follow what destiny is left bare for me?" He angled his arm across the chaotic masses to the sole Midgardian ship waiting. It was too large to fit through Loki's portals, so no one had yet attempted to steal it away. "There is my escape…Barton's salvation. If you do not trust me to take it with you, take it yourself and leave me here."
Surprised, Fehreh and Steve exchanged a glance. This was not part of the predictions.
"Is he with you?" Another voice called out to them. The company turned, watching as Loki jutted through one of his own portals and jogged over. He looked frantically from one person to another. "I heard that he has come back, that they had survived Thanos. Is he not with you?"
"Clint landed on the other side of the canyon, we think. He knows where the Gauntlet is. It's here."
Loki's mouth fell open a little. "Here? It's happening here?"
"Not if we can stop it." Steve told him sternly. Breaking away from the group, he headed directly for the transport ship.
:(:):(:):
"Make a path! Get the ship through!" Tony ordered over the comms. "Nothing matters on that planet unless we can get that ship rammed down his throat!"
Standing beside him, James Rhodes threw out his hands and fired a massive repulser blast. It lit up the coming blackness and sent an unmanned vessel spinning into the Herald across from them. The floating figure danced out of the way. Tony sent a follow up blast himself, but still the Herald wiled away from it.
"That guy's impossible to hit!" Rhodey shouted.
"Maybe we're just not throwing something big enough at it. Hulk, I need you to do me a big favor right now, buddy," Tony said. He turned his attention briefly downward toward the moon's surface. The atmosphere turned hazy on its northern pole. The vast mouth of Galactus was sucking it in, starting from the sand, buildings, rocks, and the like. He wasn't close enough to swallow up the entire moon, but it wouldn't be long now unless they moved.
Across the span of outer atmosphere, the Hulk shot off the nose of a Shi'ar vessel, and collided head-on with the Herald. He roared soundlessly in the vacuum of space, and proceeded to pummel the creature into bruised and bleeding parts and pieces. All at once, the confusion of the armadas ended. The mass explosions of friendly fire, the great unending destructions, the horror of friends lost all ended. The fighting force had control once more.
Thor approached Rhodes and Tony both.
"My friends, have you word from our brother's fallen ship?" he asked.
"Nothing yet. We need on be on the ground now," Tony replied.
"My thoughts precisely." Thor looked over at the black mass blotting out the heavens, and his face began to fall. "I think there will be no saving this world we had temporarily called home."
"As long as he sucks in those goliath particles as he goes, I don't care what he does to the moon," Tony said honestly. He blasted forward slightly in the direction of the Bethlehem Star and her elven escort. "Thor, get to the ground. Follow this." Tony chucked him a transceiver. "It's Clint's location. Get to him, get the Gauntlet, stop this. The minute I set off that ship, we'll have five minutes, at most, to get everyone clear."
Thor plucked up the floating device. "Understood." He rushed away instantly.
"Rhodey, get whatever ships are still functioning, and take out the other Heralds before they break us up. My count was twelve-hundred and twenty-four of them. Twenty-three, now that Thor is done tearing that one apart. I need to get to the Star."
"Got it!" Rhodes said. He tore off in the opposite direction, collecting Vision and Thor along the way. Tony turned his own attention back in the direction of the Star.
He could see the elven ships trying to guide her into position, and at the same time not be swallowed up into the storm cloud of Galactus. It was a hazardous proposition. He had just begun to blast in their direction when a voice cackled over the comm at him. To his utter shock, it was Odin.
"Retreat from your course," The Allfather said. "I will give this creature all the might of Asgard with which to sink his teeth into."
Tony stopped. He watched as five Asgardian transports sailed directly over his head, pushing the Alfheimr fighters out of their path. The new Milano twirled gracefully along their sides as air support. Odin wasn't just slowing Galactus down. He was trapping the Bethlehem Star in the center of his five-ship squadron. As one mass, they began to dive straight down the throat of the massive, ancient beast.
Not one to waste the sacrifice of another, Tony hurried away, plummeting toward the surface after Thor, who dropped just ahead of him.
:(:):(:):
Rinon and his band of elves dropped from the sky like an injured bird. The ship skittered along the lunar rocks, nearly toppling right through a line of escape ships attempting to exit the atmosphere. The piloting system spent, her internal workings fried, Linnor did what he could to put her down softly. At his back, both Reylano and Rinon waited only for the ship to near the end of its slide before rushing from the cabin to the landing platform. They needed to get out, quickly, and find a new ship for themselves.
"Le'Lareme, esuea mele eh li." General, they are ending the evacuation, Linnor announced, rushing out behind him. He approached the lunar bluff beside Rinon, and watched the ships escaping into the atmosphere. "We must go."
"This is the moment. We must find him. Get to him, swiftly, before it is too late!" Rinon turned swiftly, signaling to the closest hovering ship to drop to the ground for them. It was an elven vessel, and they were just as shocked to see their leader as he surely was to see them.
"Moment? Find him?" Linnor asked, catching up to Rinon's heels.
"Do you not see it? Feel it?" Rinon asked. "We must find the archer. This is the moment his fate is decided. I have given my word that we will prevent this happenstance."
"You seek to change it?" Linnor asked, surprised.
"I will do what I can. Whether I succeed or not, I owe his family that."
The rest of his scout team gathered while the filled evacuation ships joined the others in their escape. He left it to Linnor to catch them up on his plan. He'd kept close to Clint and Natasha both. He'd sworn to the Black Widow, the moment she knew of his gift, that he would try again where in the past he had so often failed. He was going to ride after the two of them, and move the very moon itself if it meant tearing Clint out of death's grip. He owed Barton that, and so much more, for what he had done for the Alfheimr realm he loved.
The last ship swung around toward them and hovered for a moment as it lowered down. Even before it had a chance to drop, Rinon felt the earth shift beneath his feet. A massive quake erupted as the entire slab of stone slid right out from under him. The shouts of the elves at his side, echoed in the canyon swiftly rushing up at them as they fell through the open air and into the darkness down below. His mind had time to think while the ground rose to meet him. Swift, fleeting memories flew through him like pictures on a movie reel.
He hadn't intended to be on Nova Luna at all. Natasha had requested he come. In her desperation for one last saving grace to protect the man she loved, she'd approached Rinon in the night and begged that he take a ship himself to Clint's side. If something should happen, if T'Challa abandoned them along with everyone else, she wanted one last chance to get them away. He was meant to fly in on T'Challa's heels, should the worst occur. Having the planet begin to crumble beneath their feet, never factored into the plan.
The very moon rebelled against him. As the elves above watched in utter horror, their great general and leader, along with his entire company of twelve, tumbled through the cracks and crevices of the lunar surface. Lirrie, Reylano, Linnor, Faraday . . . all dropping through the darkness to the depths down below. One elf was trapped almost at once between the shifting of two great plates. Rinon reached out to grab him, attempting to steal his compatriot back, though he knew at once the elf was already dead. He clawed against the rocks, splitting his fingers open in his utter desperation.
It was over.
Everything was over.
Rinon had failed.
this is not looking good...