CHAPTER 3
As Thanos' spaceship begins haphazardly descending on the planet Titan, Wade, Stark, Strange & Peter saw on the monitor their arrival and realized that no one is piloting.
"Hey, what's going on?" Peter asked.
"I think we're here," Strange replied.
"I don't think this rig has a self-park function," Stark said, as he grabbed one of the steering gimbals and signaled Peter and Wade to grab the other one. "Get your hands into this steering gimbal. Close those around it. You understand?"
"Yep, got it," Peter said.
"We're on it," Wade said.
"This was meant for one big guy, so we gotta move at the same time," Stark instructed.
"Okay, okay," Peter said.
"Ready," Wade said.
The spaceship re-entered into Titan's atmosphere, right into the path of giant metal debris.
"We might wanna turn," Peter exclaimed. "Turn! Turn! Turn!."
The ship then scrapes by the debris, causing it to break into half, and then landing on the surface. Fortunately, our heroes remain protected thanks to Strange projecting a telekinetic shield for them. Strange then looked around to see Stark being helped up by Wade.
"You alright," Strange asked them.
"Yeah," Wade responded. "Thanks, Doc."
After taking a breath, Stark said to Strange, "That was close. I owe you one."
Then Wade noticed, "Hey's, anyone seen Peter?" Then Stark and Strange looked around for Peter, only to see him descend from a web on the ceiling.
"Let me just say," Peter said. "If aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something…And I eat one of you, I'm sorry-"
"I don't wanna hear another single pop culture reference out of either of you for the rest of the trip," Tony instructed, while pointing at both Peter and Wade. "You both understand?"
"Ok," Wade replied, then muttered, "But I don't think our target demographic is gonna like that very much."
"I'm trying to say that something is coming," Peter said.
A small grenade-like object then rolls into the room, causing all four of them to get knocked back in different directions from the explosion. This surprise attack comes from three of the Guardians of the Galaxy: Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, Drax, and Mantis, who enter the doorway.
Drax charges into the room, shouting "THANOS!" and tosses knives at Strange. Strange merely uses a telekinetic shield. Drax then charges for Strange, only to get his head caught by Strange's Cloak. Stark and Quill have an airborne shootout followed by a tussle, leading to Stark tossing Quill back. This was what Quill wanted though, as during the tussle, he planted a magnetic disc on Stark's suit and pushes a button, causing Stark to get pinned to one of the steering gimbals.
Peter, still on the ground, is registering what just happened and sees Mantis in front of him and starts panicking while crawling backwards. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Please don't put your eggs in me!"
Peter webs Mantis' arms to her body, sticking her in place. Quill flies in from Peter's side and kicks him in the face, exclaiming "Stay down, clown!"
Peter gets back up and activates his spider legs to jump onto the ceiling scaffoldings, avoiding Quill's blaster shots. As Peter lunges forward to strike, Quill throws an electric cord that wraps around Peter and deactivates his spider legs, causing him to fall onto the ground, struggling to get out of the cord.
Drax, still struggling with the Cloak over his head, tries to pull it off and says "Die, blanket of death!" He finally gets it off just as Stark pulls free of the magnetic disc and he flies over with his hand blaster pointed at Drax's head. Quill has Peter in a headlock and a blaster pointed at his head, as Strange produces two telekinetic shields in his hands, ready in a defensive position, with Mantis, still stuck in webbing, hopping slowly forward.
It finally took this moment for Wade to get back up, walk forward to the confrontation and ask "Wait, what's going on here?"
Quill then pointed the blaster at Wade, and he stopped in place, quickly pulling out his guns. Quill then said "Everybody stay where you are. Chill the F out."
"Oh, grow a cock, willya?" Wade retorted, clearly annoyed by Quill's self-censoring.
Quill then deactivated his helmet, pointed his blaster at Stark, and said "I'm gonna ask you this one time. Where's Gamora?"
"Yeah, I'll do you one better," Stark said, deactivated his nanite helmet. "Who's Gamora?"
"I'll do you one better! Why is Gamora?" Drax said, clearly trying to one-up Stark.
"I'll do you one better! HOW IS GAMORA!?" Wade chimed in, wanting to join in on the fun of the chaos.
"Tell me where the girl is, or I swear you, I'm gonna French fry this little freak," Quill exclaimed, pointing his blaster back at Peter's head.
"Let's do it! You shoot my guy, I blast him. Let's go!" Tony says, as he morphs his hand blaster into an electric nanotech gun.
"The suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts!" Wade whispers to a nearby Strange, who just rolls his eyes.
"Do it, Quill! I can take it," Drax says, prepared for whatever Stark will do next.
"No he can't take it!" Mantis admits, hopping further forward.
"She's right, you can't," Strange agrees.
"Oh yeah? You don't wanna tell me where she is?" Quill said, his patience clearly being tested. "That's fine. I'll just kill all four of you and beat it out of Thanos myself," He then points his blaster closer to Peter's head, "starting with you."
"Wait, what, Thanos?" Strange confusingly asked. "All right, let me ask you this one time: what master do you serve?"
"What master do I serve?" Quill snarked back. "What am I supposed to say, Jesus?"
Stark looked at Strange and Wade, then back to Quill. "You're from Earth?"
"I'm not from Earth. I'm from Missouri," Quill responded.
"Yeah, that's on Earth, dipshit," Stark replied. "What're you hassling us for?"
"So, you're not with Thanos," Peter asked Quill.
"With Thanos?" Quill scoffs. "No, I'm here to kill Thanos."
"Oh, what luck. So are we," Wade said, as he withdrew his guns and took off his mask. "We're also from Earth."
Everyone just stared at his face, not knowing what he looked like underneath.
"You sure about that?" Drax asked.
"I know… I'm not that easy to look at," Wade admitted. "But I… we are here to fight Thanos."
"Wait, who are you?" Quill asked.
"We're the Avengers, man," Peter replied, deactivating his nanite mask.
"Oh," Quill, realizing this is a misunderstanding, settled his blaster and let go of Peter's head.
"You're the ones Thor told us about," Mantis said.
"You know Thor?" Tony asked.
"You met Thor?" Wade asked, feeling a bit jealous.
"Yeah. Tall guy, not that good-looking," Quill answered, as Peter and Wade gave him weird looks about the latter of the description. "Needing saving."
"Where is he now?" Strange asked.
"He's with two of our other crew members to Nidavellir getting some kind of Thanos-killing weapon," Quill responded.
"Well, I hope he gets back soon," Stark said. "Because we're gonna take down Thanos on his own turf."
After proper introductions were made, our group of heroes exited the remained wreckage of the ship and surveyed the barren remains of Titan. As Quill uses a device to measure the planet's tilt, Mantis is jumping with the planet's low gravity as Drax, Wade and Peter curiously watch. Strange is in the background hovering above the ground and appears to be meditating.
"The heck happened to this planet?" Quill wondered out loud. "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," Stark mused to himself, then he told the others, "All right, I have a plane. 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 need that gauntlet."
Drax then interrupts with a yawn.
"Are you yawning?" Stark asked, exasperated. "In the middle of this, while I'm breaking it down?"
"Hey, guy's gotta yawn," Wade retorted.
"Did you hear what I said?" Tony asked Drax.
"I stopped listening after you said, 'We need a plan'," Drax admitted.
"Okay, Mr. Clean is on his own page," Stark said to Quill.
"See, 'not winging it' isn't really what they do," Quill told Stark.
"Uh, what exactly do they do?" Peter asked Quill.
"Kick names, take ass," Mantis replied.
"Yeah, that's right," Drax proudly responded.
Stark has a moment where he just has a look of complete hopelessness from that. Wade looks at him and ask "you felt that too, didn't you Stark? Like your brain just had a stroke?"
Stark then asks Quill "Alright, just get over here, please. Mr. Lord, can you get your folks to circle up?"
"'Mr. Lord'. Star-Lord is fine," Quill told Stark, and then motions Drax and Mantis to step in closer.
"We gotta coalesce," Stark says to them, "'Cause if all we come at him with is a plucky attitude…"
"Dude, don't call us plucky," Quill interrupted. "We don't know what it means. Alright, we're optimistic, yes. I like your plan. Except it sucks, so let me do the plans, and that way it might be really good."
"Tell him about the dance-off to save the universe," Drax told Quill.
"What dance-off?" Tony asked.
"It's not a- it's nothing," Quill responded.
"Like in Footloose, the movie?" Peter asked.
"Exactly like Footloose." Quill excitedly replies. "Is it still the greatest movie in history?"
"Well that depends," Wade chimed in. "We talking about the original film or the remake?"
"They remade it?" Quill confusingly asked.
"How long have been away from Earth again?" Wade asked, as Quill looked at him raising a brow. "Yeah, I don't think you even know the half of it."
"Don't encourage this, alright?" Stark chastised both Peter and Wade.
"Okay," Peter whispered, as Wade simply rolled his eyes.
"We're getting no help from Flash Gordon here," Stark said, obviously referring to Quill.
"Flash Gordon, by the way? That's a compliment," Quill retorted.
"I'm more of a Duck Dodgers fan myself," Wade snarked.
"Don't forget, I'm half human," Quill said. "So that 50% of me that's stupid… That's 100% you."
"Your math is blowing my mind," Stark sarcastically responded.
"I like those odds," Wade admitted.
"Excuse me, but…" Mantis interrupted, noticing that something was wrong with Strange. "Does your friend often do that?"
The others turn around to see Strange's head jerking rapidly from side to side as he continues to sit in his meditative position.
"I just thought he was praying for us, so I didn't want to bug him," Wade replied.
"Strange, you alright?" Stark shouted to Strange.
As the others stepped closer to Strange, he lands to the floor letting out a terrified gasp. Stark approaches him to make sure he's alright.
"You're back, You're alright," Stark told him.
"Hey, what was that?" Peter asked.
"I went forward in time to view alternate futures," Strange replied, trying to catch his breath. "To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict."
"How many did you see?" Quill asked.
"14,000,605," Strange replied.
"How many did we win?" Stark asked.
Strange pauses for a moment before answering, "One."
