Scorpio

FORTY TWO - Never Forget Us

"Alycs? Alycs, listen up. The planet's about to blow, and you need to take as many people as you can and get out of there. Do you hear me?"

Fumbling for his intercom, Alycs hastily hit the closest button he could feel. "Copy that, Ms. Danvers."

Groot strained as he ushered wave after wave of vehicles - some American, some German, all shiny - through the portal, and Alycs did his best to make up for time by deactivating as many phone batteries as he could reach. Wanda had already been deployed to the other side, working to keep as much order as possible with goodness knows how many people-turned-rabid-tourists in line. Dr. Strange had an entire army of cloaked wizards helping Groot hold up the portal between Motbalans and Earth, but even an optimist could see that the pace they were going at was barely fast enough.

Alycs tried to shove the memory of Mr. Stark twig-breaking to the back of his mind, and directed a couple with a screaming baby into a Prius.

"This is not my car, sir," the man in the beanie was saying.

"Get a rideshare, then," Alycs shot back, feeling a little fed up. "Or stay here, while the planet blows up. I personally think the madam and her baby want to live on Earth."

Beanie Man shut up.

"Hey, Smurf-child," Shuri's voice floated through the intercom. "You've got to get out of there pretty soon. I calculate T-minus thirty seconds before the explosion hits you, too."

"Okay, give me a second." Alycs waved the Prius into the procession of cars, then teleported into the back of the furthest sedan he could find.

"Oh my god!" the man in the shotgun shrieked. The woman behind the steering wheel winced and cursed.

"Babe! What did I say about shouting while I'm driving?" she hissed.

"But Darcy, a blue kid literally just popped out of thin air-"

"That happened all the time when Thor was here," Darcy answered, before doing a double-take in the rearview mirror. "Wait, he's blue?"

Alycs eyed the oncoming dust cloud behind them and startled at the sudden "where the hell did you come from, dude?!" thrown his way.

"I'm an Avenger, and I can do cool things," he responded, casting a worried look at the dust cloud swallowing the cars behind him. "Look, do you two want to see a magic trick?"

The once-screaming man tilted his head. "What kind-"

Alycs clamped his hands around the two headrests in front of him, letting his Maisoabre training kick in. By the time Darcy stopped screeching, the car had already come to a rest in the crest of a little dune in the middle of a desert.

He hopped out as soon as Wanda's familiar red glow wrapped around the shiny vehicle, lifting it high in the air and no doubt drawing a fresh round of screaming from the excitable couple. The sun was just setting wherever they were - there were a few triangular sculptures some ways away, but besides those, it was just sand, sand, sand as far as the eye could see.

And cars. And people. And a frontline of wizards, mere brown specks lined up like ants on one side of the impromptu parking lot.

Alycs tilted his head back, despite knowing the tiny change in angle wouldn't really help to find a familiar purple hoodie in a crowd of a thousand people. Lowering his head, he pressed his comm in his ear.

"Is Estella here?"

It was Natasha who responded. "I haven't seen her yet." Scuffling. "Anyone know where Cap and Tony are?"